MARCH 17, 2023

 “God would not bring you through a Red Sea and turn around and allow you to perish in a fish pond.” 

― Johnnie Dent Jr.

DEUTERONOMY 29-30

19This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.(30:9-20)

MARK 16

6“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ ”

8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.^a

JOURNAL 

God makes it very clear...we are to "choose life". He is that life...it is the same for the women upon coming to the tomb. Nothing is really explained...they are just told to go and Jesus will be waiting for them. The hurt and pain of the crucifixion is over, it's a new day and they are told to go. 

Surrender to God everything, seek him in all things, choose life and go as he commands. This is the essence of the Gospel, yet we make it far more complicated. I think it becomes more complicated because, for me, I don't fully trust God, all the time and in all things. Meaning I don't seek him constantly...

This is the rub, this is the dance with sin. This is why I need these reminders, every moment of every day. But I can see and feel how a life lived this way would be. It would be one where I fully trusted the future, was at peace with the past and was sold out to the present moment, living to give and be my best in obedience to God. Why do I not do this??? I think it's because I don't fully trust the future, I am not at peace with the past, therefore I am not sold out to the present. 

So while I do need God in the present...where I really need to trust him are in the things that are out of my control...the past and the future. Surrender those fully to God and obedience in the moment becomes much more attainable. 

34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: 36“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

37Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’^c 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^d 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”