Deuteronomy – Chapter 18

And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’— when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. Deuteronomy 18:21-22 – In this section of the chapter the Lord through Moses tells the people of Israel that a Prophet would one day come and this Prophet would be one the people needed to listen to. We learn from Acts 3 that this Prophet spoken of was none other than Jesus Christ. Jesus would come in the name of the Father, speaking the words of the Father to His people, and the people were to follow those words. Yet how would they be certain Jesus, this Prophet, was actually from the Lord speaking the Lord’s words? Well God gives them a way to discern such things. If what the prophet said would happen in the name of the Lord didn’t happen, then that prophet was false. Using that filter, let’s look at all that Jesus said would happen. Is there anything in the Gospels that Jesus said would happen that didn’t? Certainly there are some prophecies He spoke about that are still to come, but what about this biggest one of His resurrection. Jesus Himself said He’d die and rise again three days later. For any prophet to say that it would sound ridiculous, but exactly what Jesus said came about showing He is truly from the Father. What this settles for us is that what Jesus said is true. He said you can have life through Him, and that’s true. He said He’s returning one day, and that’s true. If Jesus could accurately predict His own death and resurrection and glorification, we can bank on any words that came from His mouth. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 3457

When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. Deuteronomy 18:9 – It can be tempting to think that when we begin stepping into all that God is leading us into that the temptations to pursue sin will just begin fading away. Yet what we see in our passage is a reminder that not only could those temptations be there but we can expect them to come up. I wish it was the case that temptations would just stop when you pursue Jesus well, but that’s not how our enemy works. What’s great though is when we pursue after Jesus then we are already heading towards the one that offers us the strength to move past those temptations. That while yes these temptations are something we can expect, they are something we can overcome. Remember you have the choice to say no and God wants to offer you the strength to say no. Our enemy is already planning to strip your focus off of God, but we don’t have to hand him his victory. Take hold of the victory over sin that Jesus already won for you. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 1313

Deuteronomy 18 – Pastor Mac Daily DEVO The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to him you shall listen…Deuteronomy 18:15 – As a reminder, Deuteronomy is when Moses was speaking to the people of Israel right before they stepped into the Promise land finally after their forty year wilderness journey. Moses wasn’t allowed by God to go with them into the land, so he is speaking over them all that God had shared and done up to that point to remind them to remain faithful once in the land of promise. Here Moses reminds them of a particular promise God made, that God would raise up for them another prophet from among their people. This prophet would speak and the people would need to listen to him. Now many prophets came from the Lord after the time of Moses, and this passage could for sure speak of them in part. What we see from scripture though is this particular prophet spoken of by Moses is our Savior Jesus. Even in Acts 3 when Peter is speaking he refers back to this moment in history to prove that Jesus truly was from God and is God. How amazing is it to see that even before the Israelites took their first real steps into the Promise Land, God had already been speaking to them of His Savior that would come for their rescue one day. Our responsibility then today is to do what God through Moses said to do with what this prophet spoke. Listen to it and follow it. What a blessing then it is that we don’t have to be in a place of waiting for our Savior to come and speak to know what to follow in this life. We have the words of Jesus recorded for us in scripture to learn and follow. Let’s invest our days learning what our Savior, the prophet Moses spoke of long ago, has spoken and begin following those words with our whole lives. I love you, but Jesus loves you more – Mac – Daily DEVO 2443