After forty years in the wilderness, often on the move,
eating primarily manna and with an entire generation now dead and gone, Moses
tells them not to forget these years.
The Lord was doing a work, humbling them but also keeping them
safe. There were many miraculous events
in those years but Moses points to the provision of manna, that their feet did
not swell and their clothing did not wear out as what they should recall when
they enter the land. What about things
like the Red Sea, water from the rock, the defeat of the Amalekites when they
held his arms in the air throughout the day, the fiery serpents, and so many
other remarkable events? The blessing of
the land corresponds to the privations and yet miraculous work of God in the
wilderness to preserve the people. The
change is from difficulties and hardships to a land flowing with milk and honey
and it will be tempting to forget those years and the presence of the Lord in
providing for the nation for four decades in the wilderness.
Jesus and His disciples apparently didn’t keep the fasts
that other religious people kept. Here
we are in the first Sunday of Lent, our season of fasting, and the question is
on the table concerning the issue of religious seasons of fasting. We celebrate on Sundays during Lent and many
people feast this day because of the resurrection day should be a day of
rejoicing. Jesus says there are proper
times to fast, it is an appropriate thing but when He was here there was not a
reason to fast, it was a time to celebrate the goodness of God. Feasting and fasting should be part of our
lives as Christians. Just as it was good
for the people to recall by fasting the time in the wilderness, so it is good
for us to recall ourselves to a life without Him in it in order that we can
remember how glorious grace truly is.
Even in our own wilderness years, we were recipients of grace though we
didn’t recognize it at the time.
Paul reminds the church in Corinth that they were nothing
special when God called them. “For
consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly
standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.” Sometimes we forget who we were and in doing
so we forget who we are. We forget that
it is only by grace we are saved, not by merit either past or present, and we
get too high an opinion of ourselves.
Such was the problem at Corinth, they were proud of their “knowledge”
and not proud of the cross. We were all
nothing at all, doomed to destruction, dead in sin to God, and He took us and
gave us life and true wisdom although to the world it looks like utter folly
that a man perishing on a cross could be God Himself. Today is a good day to remember who you were
and that who you are is completely dependent on grace, amazing grace indeed.
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