Today's Quick Word
Today’s Quick Word
Deuteronomy 33:27-29 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’ So Israel will live in safety; […]
Deuteronomy 33:27-29 The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’ So Israel will live in safety; Jacob will dwell secure in a land of grain and new wine, where the heavens drop dew. Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights.
Just before he died, Moses pronounced a blessing on each of the tribes of Israel in turn. Then he reminded them who they were as a nation about to enter the Promised Land under Joshua: ‘a people saved by the LORD’.
The people of God today, his Church, are the ‘New Israel’, and it is good for us to remember who we are: ‘a people saved by the Lord.’ We cannot save ourselves, by anything we might DO or achieve. We are sinners saved by grace alone. We are not better or more worthy than anyone else, but out of his unconditional love and mercy the Creator of the Universe and the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ has called us to be his very own (cf Deuteronomy 7:7-9).
This means that he is also our ‘shield’ and ‘helper’, and the one who guarantees our victory over all worldly principalities and powers. The Apostle Paul reminds us that his ‘glorious sword’ that gains victory over all his opponents is “the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17).
It is easy to become discouraged when we see the powerful impact secular humanism in all its agencies is having on people’s thinking today. Can we make any headway with our Christian world view? Let us be encouraged by how Jesus reiterated Moses’ words: “… on this rock [the confession that he is the Christ] I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome [or prevail against] it” (Matthew 16:18). Or by the Apostle Paul: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Let us take heart as we proclaim the Gospel of God’s saving grace and see his power at work! Even though we are often under fire, and are often prone to fail/fall, it is comforting to know that ‘the eternal God is our refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.’
– Bruce Christian
