7 day plan

Love your Neighbour (and your Enemies)

Day 3 of 7

NIV

Deuteronomy 10:17-19

17For 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. 18He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.

Reflection: Not a tribal love

If you know a little about the Old Testament you would be aware of its focus on the people of Israel. Starting in Genesis 12, God begins his plan of salvation by choosing Abraham, and his descendants. But this selection of the Jewish nation is not only for their benefit. It is for the sake of the whole world.

God’s heart is outward looking from the very beginning. God chose Israel to be a light to the nations, so that salvation would be enjoyed by both Jews and Gentiles. This is why Paul says in Galatians 3:8 that “Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: ‘All nations will be blessed through you.’”

One expression of this missional heart of God is love towards the stranger (or “foreigner” in some Bible versions). God’s people are always called to love the foreigner, to tangibly love those who do not fit within our tribes. In this passage, God recalls that Israel once experienced being strangers in the land of Egypt.

Our heart for the stranger is that they would ultimately join with us and become part of the people of God. But the love of God is not tribal. And neither should ours be. The love of the people of God does not look for limits. It looks for opportunity.

Question:  To what degree does your life intersect with strangers and foreigners?

Prayer:  Dear God, please give me an understanding of your abundant grace and love, which can even bless those who don’t yet belong to our tribe. Amen.

The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.

Days

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7

Deuteronomy 10:1-22

Tablets Like the First Ones

1At 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. 2I 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.”

3So 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. 4The 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. 5Then 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. 7From there they traveled to Gudgodah and on to Jotbathah, a land with streams of water. 8At 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. 9That 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.)

10Now 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

12And 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, 13and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

14To the Lord your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. 15Yet 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. 16Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff-necked any longer. 17For 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. 18He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. 19And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt. 20Fear the Lord your God and serve him. Hold fast to him and take your oaths in his name. 21He is the one you praise; he is your God, who performed for you those great and awesome wonders you saw with your own eyes. 22Your 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.

The Holy Bible, New International Version® NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by Permission of Biblica, Inc.® All rights reserved worldwide.