“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish.” –Jesus, Matthew 18:12-14

Who is God?  God is our Creator, the One who enjoys pouring out His blessings of all that is good over us who come to Him.  God knows all for He created all.  God knows us by name and speaks to us when we call on His Name.  God knows exactly what we need when we need it.  In fact, God knows before we know what we need!  God’s timing for delivery is perfect because God is perfection in every way.

It is God’s nature to keep His promises to His created. No matter what we do, God will still keep His promise to be faithful to His created. “In the image of God” we are created. So, it is not the Father’s desire that we perish; it is His desire that we thrive in His Presence now and for eternity.  Since the Fall of Adam and Eve, His first humans created, turned from God to give in to God’s enemy’s persuasion to do evil; we are born to rebel against God until we surrender to God.  God gave us a choice to follow Him or to fall for evil.  God wants us to love Him back—by choice.

It is in humbled surrender in repentance of our rebellion to God, that we finally see God for Who He is—Redeemer, Provider, Protector, Healer, Sustainer, as well as our Father in Heaven.  We pray for His Kingdom to come and reign in us and all around us.  We pray for His will be done in every detail of our lives on earth as it is in heaven. We begin to see how God works as He demonstrates His glorious ways in our surrendered lives. 

Yes, our God, who so loved us, also promised Jesus, the Christ, the Messiah, His One and Only Son who would come down from heaven with the proclaimed purpose and mission to save us from our sins.  This is God. This is Who God is and want He does. God is love. To know God is to finally know real Love.  God demonstrates this love for us with amazing grace and ending mercy for us by sacrificing His Son on a cruel cross. God is faithful even when we are not.  God makes a way through all the messes we make with relentless love, mercy and grace.  God loves the world—all of us.

God forgave His people.  God gave Moses another chance to chisel two more tablets upon which God would rewrite the Ten Commandments.  Moses will make an ark, a chest, in which to place God’s commandments for His people. The chest that held the chiseled tablets went with them wherever they traveled as a reminder of God’s Presence, Promise, and Purpose so they would not forget who God is and what He expects from us, for our good and for His glory.  He is God. 

Deuteronomy 10

Tablets Like the First Ones

At that time the Lord said to me, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones and come up to me on the mountain. Also make a wooden ark. ² I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke. Then you are to put them in the ark.”

³ So I made the ark out of acacia wood and chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I went up on the mountain with the two tablets in my hands. ⁴ The Lord wrote on these tablets what he had written before, the Ten Commandments he had proclaimed to you on the mountain, out of the fire, on the day of the assembly. And the Lord gave them to me. ⁵ Then I came back down the mountain and put the tablets in the ark I had made, as the Lord commanded me, and they are there now.

⁶ (The Israelites traveled from the wells of Bene Jaakan to Moserah. There Aaron died and was buried, and Eleazar his son succeeded him as priest. ⁷ From there they traveled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water. ⁸ At that time the Lord set apart the tribe of Levi to carry the ark of the covenant of the Lord, to stand before the Lord to minister and to pronounce blessings in his name, as they still do today. ⁹ That is why the Levites have no share or inheritance among their fellow Israelites; the Lord is their inheritance, as the Lord your God told them.)

¹⁰ Now I had stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights, as I did the first time, and the Lord listened to me at this time also. It was not his will to destroy you. ¹¹ “Go,” the Lord said to me, “and lead the people on their way, so that they may enter and possess the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.”

Fear the Lord

¹² And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, ¹³ and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

¹⁴ To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. ¹⁵ Yet the Lord set his affection on your ancestors and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations—as it is today. ¹⁶ Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. ¹⁷ For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. ¹⁸ He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. ¹⁹ And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. ²⁰ Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. ²¹ He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. ²² Your ancestors who went down into Egypt were seventy in all, and now the Lord your God has made you as numerous as the stars in the sky.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God was, is and always will be God.  We cannot change this truth that He is God.  Here is another truth: we are not God.  We did not create ourselves or anything around us. God created all and is in all that we enjoy today. God created us in His own image. The term has its roots in Genesis 1:27, wherein “God created man in his own image. . .” This scriptural passage does not mean that God is in human form, but rather, that humans are in the image of God in their moral, spiritual, and intellectual nature.  It is God’s desire that we seek Him with our loving desire to be like Him.  Jesus demonstrated for us what this looks like when He came to earth to seek and to save the lost!

Fact for consideration: We become like the one we think about most.  We are influenced directly and indirectly by those we walk and talk with most often. Their habits and characteristics become our habitual way of thinking and behaving.  So, the question becomes; who do we most want to be like?

Moses loved God and did what God said—mostly. Moses was not perfect but he was surrendered to God.  Moses faithfully served God as the called leader God chose for His People—mostly.  We discover, however, that Moses was not only the leader but he began to develop the compassion trait of the God he served.  When God wanted to wipe His rebellious, “stiff-necked,” stubborn people off the face of the earth; Moses interceded on their behalf, asking God to forgive them.  Don’t miss this detail of God’s story!  The forty days and nights spent with God alone rubbed off on Moses!  Then later Moses spent another forty with God to learn more!

Nothing escapes God’s notice, but God is faithful and will always be faithful.  God forgave His people.  God provided two more written tablets.  God gave His People a second chance (and a million more) to make course corrections on their journey to the Promised Land.  This is God.

KNOW THIS: God knows you. God knows me.  God knows who we are before we know!

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn if I settle on the far side of the sea,even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand—when I awake, I am still with you.

If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.           Psalm 139, NIV

Where could I go but to the Lord?  He loves me.  He loves you.  He loves all He created.  God promised His best and gave us His Son, Jesus who is the only Way to Truth (God) who gives us eternal Life!  Jesus willingly and obediently became our sin and paid our debt in full.  Only God forgives and removes our sin completely. Jesus completed His mission. God did for us what we could not do for ourselves—set us free, redeeming us once and for all.

“The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:16-17

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”  Ephesians 1:7-14

Lord,

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In Jesus Name, for our good and your glory, yes and amen!