Verse of the Day 2/9

 

Deuteronomy 34:4  Then the Lord said to Moses, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have now allowed you to see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land."

 

5 So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had said.   New Living Translation (NLT)

 

The other day we considered David standing in a "broad place" with a distant view which gave him a new, a different perspective on his life.  In today's verse, Moses approaches the end of his life and God leads him to the top of a mountain (picture that at 120 years old!) to give him a glimpse of the promised land here on earth.  He saw it from a distance but never made it there.  So it is with many characters in the Bible, they lived there lives "circumspectly", with eyes open to all that was going on around them, ultimately looking forward towards eternity, the ultimate distant view.

 

Sean Michael Lucas writes, "This was seeing without proximity.  Moses could see a long way and he could see it all - everything he had written about in Genesis 12 -50 was right there.  Remember, he hadn't actually seen the land upon which Abraham had trod, the wells that Isaac had dug, the stone upon which Jacob slept at Bethel.  He had written about and now, he saw it - from a distance.  It was not close enough to touch, to feel to breathe.  The Promised Land was just beyond his reach."

 

As Christians, we are all at different places in our own pilgrimage, with different perspectives resulting from our place and things we've experienced in our lives.  But at those "broad places" we occasionally get a glimpse of that distant view which gives us hope and spurs us on in our walk.  Through these our connection to God is affirmed.

 

A quote I read in a devotional from John Piper brought all of this together for me.  "Be sure that you are connected to the way God means to motivate you with the backward look and the distant forward look and the near forward look" - John Piper  Jesus call us, invites us to stand, to look towards that "mansion just over the hilltop" ...."where we'll never grow old.

 

In Christ,
Mike

 

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Eph 1:7 In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace  NIV

Deuteronomy 34:1-5  New Living Translation (NLT)
The Death of Moses

 

34 Then Moses went up to Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab and climbed Pisgah Peak, which is across from Jericho. And the Lord showed him the whole land, from Gilead as far as Dan; 2 all the land of Naphtali; the land of Ephraim and Manasseh; all the land of Judah, extending to the Mediterranean Sea; 3 the Negev; the Jordan Valley with Jericho—the city of palms—as far as Zoar. 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob when I said, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have now allowed you to see it with your own eyes, but you will not enter the land."

 

5 So Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, just as the Lord had said.