A simple but challenging thought today. God tells Moses he will not be allowed to go to the promised Land because, like his brother, he “broke faith” (NIV) with God. Moses appealed his conviction, but God’s mind was made up. Moses would not be successful in his advocacy as he had been in the past.
Then Moses writes two songs, one recorded in Psalms, and one recorded in Deuteronomy. While we don’t know exactly when the Psalm was written, do do know — based on it’s placement in Deuteronomy — that the other was near the end of his life. Just before he was to die. So close and yet so far from the promise toward which he had been leading the Lord’s people for the last 4 decades.
And how does this man, facing punishment and denied the Promised Land describe the God who punished and denied him?
Great, Perfect, Just, Upright, Maker, Feeder, Nourisher, Rock, Saviour, Life.
Oh to have that perspective! Lord help me to see you as you are even when I am facing the earned consequences of my own actions. Thank you Jesus. Thank you for your justice as well as your mercy. Help me to understand that I deserve the former and have done nothing to earn the latter. Help me to rejoice in the hope you have given me in the next life, even if I am subject to You wrath in this one. Though You slay me, yet will I trust in You (Job 13:15)