The Meaning Of Life

https://biblehub.com/nkjv/deuteronomy/8.htm

The Old Testament is still valid today. It doesn’t matter what your pastor says, read your Bible. God is unchanging. The Old Testament makes it clear what He expects of us. And Jesus affirmed that.

Your pastor will tell you that the death of Jesus abolished the law and that we are not under the law, we are under grace. Grace means were are forgiven if we are truly repentive, but it doesn’t wipe the slate clean and give us freedom to do what we wish. Here is a good example a pastor once used to explain “grace”.

You’re driving down the highway and your mind is busy with important things and you don’t realize that your foot has gotten heavy and that you are now speeding. You get pulled over by a trooper, he tells you the speed you were clocked at, and you are totally honest with him. “Sorry, I was lost in thought, I wasn’t meaning to speed, but I wasn’t paying attention to my speed, and my foot got heavy.”

The trooper admires your honesty and working with him rather than arguing about your speed or trying to bribe him, or giving some obviously false excuse. So he writes you a warning ticket and gives you “grace” for speeding.

Does this mean you are now free to speed if you want to. A trooper gave you “grace” for speeding, so it’s okay to speed as fast as you want, right? No, you were given grace for your sin of speeding, but you are still under the rules of traffic and must keep your speed at the posted speed limit or below.

It’s the same with Jesus. Jesus died on the cross for our sins, to give us “grace” for ours. But that doesn’t mean we are no longer under the law.

If we are no longer under the law, or if the Mosaic Law was for the Hebrews only, then it must be okay to murder, right? We’re not under the law. It must be okay to commit adultery, and to lie and steal, right?

We can’t pick and choose the rules we want to follow. The law if still valid and we are still under it. Is that legalism? No. We don’t follow the rules because because it’s the law, we follow the rules out of love for God. Just as we are faithful to our spouse because we love them and don’t want to hurt them, we follow God’s rules because we love Him and don’t want to hurt Him.

And if the Old Testament is no longer valid, why is it included in the Bible? Why aren’t today’s Bibles, or any Bible’s printed since the Ascension, just the New Testament? If the Old Testament is no longer valid, why waste the paper?

That said, pay close attention to this chapter. It details the love God had for His people over the last 40 years in the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt. No matter how much faith they didn’t have, no matter how much they whined and moaned about how better their life was in Egypt, no matter how much complaining and rebellion they did about food, and water, and even though they built a golden calf and worshiped it, God still loved them and blessed them. Now that’s “grace”.

He gave them manna to eat. He gave them quail to eat. He gave them water. And as this chapter says, they wore the same clothes and the same shoes for 40 years, and they didn’t wear out. They walked in the wilderness for 40 years, and their shoes had no wear on them.

Verse 3 – So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. 4Your garments did not wear out on you, nor did your foot swell these forty years. 5You should [d]know in your heart that as a man chastens his son, so the Lord your God chastens you.

Live by the word of God. The word of God is documented in the Bible, writings by authors that were inspired by God. And it is still good.

11“Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12lest—when you have eaten and are [e]full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are [f]multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14when your heart [g]is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage; 15who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock; 16who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end— 17then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’

18“And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may [h]establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.

Verse 11 – Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today, 12lest—when you have eaten and are [e]full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them; 13and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are [f]multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied; 14when your heart [g]is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God…17then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’ 18“And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may [h]establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day. 19Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.

How many of us attribute our success to our own intelligence and hard work? Or do we thank God for our blessings?

I worked 46 years before I retired, very demanding jobs, jobs in public safety that have put me through things no human should be put through. I was successful in those jobs, rising to the top. I’m far from rich, but I am secure. And today, before I eat, I thank God for my blessings, my blessings of the food in front of me, of the house I sit in, of the clothing I am wearing, of just another day of life. All of what I have came from God, and from no one else.

I am the guardian of an adult girl with special needs. She is mentally retarded, has Type 1 diabetes, and multiple seizure disorders. She was a former foster child that my wife and I adopted. Since my wife has passed, I have still been caring for her these last 5 years, over 20 years total.

Her pediatrician, who specialized in juvenile diabetes, said she was so fragile that she would no live to see her 20’s, that the disease would likely kill her in her teens. This year, she turns 31. And when people try to give me and/or my wife credit for keeping her alive, I pass that credit onto God. I am doing nothing. Each day is a guessing game for me, trying to keep her blood sugar halfway stable. I have done nothing to keep her alive, it is all God’s will. He is working through me to keep her alive. Without Him, she would be dead. I can not, and will not, take credit for her survival.

We should all thank God each and every day for everything we have, and if we find ourselves in the position of Job, still thank Him just for the breath we take.

II am a fan of cooking shows, not the ones on TV, the home cooks who prepare meals and make short videos for YouTube. I was watching a woman one day prepare some kind of dessert, I don’t remember now what it was. But when she was done, she called her husband in to sample a bite to see if it was good or not.

I remember vividly; she took a spoon, filled it with the dessert, and held it up to her husband’s mouth so he could taste it. And before he took that bite, that one single bite, that little morsel of a sample of food, he said, “Thank you Jesus”, then he took the bite.

I pray before meals to thank God for the food He has provided. But I’m not a good enough Christian to thank Him for a snack, or for a quick chip as I’m walking by the pantry, or for a cold soft drink. I wish I was that good of a Christian, I’m trying to be that good of a Christian, but I’m not there yet. I might not make it, but I will never give up trying.

Be thankful. And obey God out of love.

Amen.