Today daily devotional / Carried All the Way!

[ladylovesJesus]

Carried All the Way!

Scripture Reading — Deuteronomy 1:26-33

“. . . In the wilderness . . . you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

— Deuteronomy 1:31

The picture of a father gently carrying his son is an image of God’s love, power, and protection extended to us as his children. When we cannot go any further, we are drained of our desire to keep going. We feel beat up by life’s circumstances and don’t want to show up anymore.

I remember watching a replay of the 1992 Olympics men’s 400-meter semifinals in Barcelona when British runner Jim Redmond injured his leg. The announcer said, “He’s out!” Redmond was in pain and couldn't run, but he hopped on one foot, heading for the finish line. The crowd cheered because he didn’t stop. He wouldn’t let anyone help him until his dad ran out onto the course and wrapped his arms around him. Redmond’s dad wore a cap that said, “Just Do It.” But Redmond’s pain was too intense, and he cried. Yet the crowd never stopped cheering. The father held his son until he made it to the finish line.

When we’re running our race in life and can’t see our way through, our heavenly Father will gently carry us all the way. There’s no reason to feel shame or guilt. We cannot “just do it.” God will carry us through the wilderness. God is always with us, wherever we are, and he promises us that we will make it through.

Heavenly Father, thank you for carrying me when I can’t “just do it.” I leave my shame and my guilt at Jesus’ feet. In your powerful name, Lord, and by your Spirit, Amen.

About the author — Denise Posie

Denise Posie served as a pastor in an urban church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for thirteen years. She also served the Christian Reformed Church in North America as a congregational consultant and as director of leadership diversity. Since retiring in 2020, she has served part-time at Calvin Theological Seminary as a pastor in redemptive kingdom diversity, and in her spare time she enjoys writing and meeting new people.

 

[B-A-C]

This seems like a somewhat odd passage for that message.

Numb 14:27 "How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against Me.
Numb 14:28 "Say to them, 'As I live,' says the LORD, 'just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will surely do to you;
Numb 14:29 your corpses will fall in this wilderness, even all your numbered men, according to your complete number from twenty years old and upward, who have grumbled against Me.
Numb 14:30 'Surely you shall not come into the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and Joshua the son of Nun.
Numb 14:31 'Your children, however, whom you said would become a prey—I will bring them in, and they will know the land which you have rejected.
Numb 14:32 'But as for you, your corpses will fall in this wilderness.
Numb 14:33 'Your sons shall be shepherds for forty years in the wilderness, and they will suffer for your unfaithfulness, until your corpses lie in the wilderness.

Deut 1:35 'Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers,
Deut 1:36 except Caleb the son of Jephunneh; he shall see it, and to him and to his sons I will give the land on which he has set foot, because he has followed the LORD fully.'
Deut 1:37 "The LORD was angry with me also on your account, saying, 'Not even you shall enter there.
Deut 1:38 'Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter there; encourage him, for he will cause Israel to inherit it.

Heb 3:17 And with whom was He angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?
Heb 3:18 And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who were disobedient?
Heb 3:19 So we see that they were not able to enter because of unbelief.

Heb 4:1 Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you may seem to have come short of it.
Heb 4:2 For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.
Heb 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, "AS I SWORE IN MY WRATH, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST," although His works were finished from the foundation of the world.
Heb 4:4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: "AND GOD RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORKS";
Heb 4:5 and again in this passage, "THEY SHALL NOT ENTER MY REST."
Heb 4:6 Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience,