Another month is over and I have to confess that I didn’t finish in time. In fact, it’s taken me a whole week to catch up and I considered not doing a blog post on this month at all. But here we are, God’s grace prevailing.

Deuteronomy appears to be a really large book and I’ve enjoyed following the transition of God’s love from Moses to Joshua to lead the Israelites, but I’ll touch on a few other points before I get to that. But first, False Prophets.

False Prophets
“But if any prophet dares to speak a message in my name when I did not command him to do so, he must die for it, and so must any prophet who speaks in the name of other gods.”
We no shortage of prophets in this country. To be sure, we have twice as many prophets as we have churches, with many making predictions on various national and political issues, with respect to one office-holders s death or another on the annual basis. In fact, a google search came up a list of pastors who release predictions and forecasts annually like the World Bank. These predictions often include the deaths of sitting presidents or governors.
“You may wonder how you can tell when a prophet’s message does not come from the Lord. If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord’s message. That prophet has spoken on his own authority, and you are not to fear him.”

Again, in the Gospel of Luke we are warned to be wary of “teachers of the Law” “Be on your guard against the teachers of the Law, who like to walk around in their long robes and love to be greeted with respect in the marketplace; who choose the reserved seats in the synagogues and the best places at feasts;who take advantage of widows and rob them of their homes, and then make a show of saying long prayers!  Their punishment will be all the worse!””

Keep Your Promises
It’s common to procrastinate. Life happens and priorities change, and then it becomes easy to neglect our relationship with God because He doesn’t have a physical presence and isn’t going to nag you about it. However, Deuteronomy 23:21‭-‬23 GNT says “When you make a vow to the Lord your God, do not put off doing what you promised; the Lord will hold you to your vow, and it is a sin not to keep it. It is no sin not to make a vow to the Lord, but if you make one voluntarily, be sure that you keep it.”
So be careful with how often you make vows to God. Make them few and achievable so that they are easier to fulfil.

Make Your Wife Happy
“When a man is newly married, he is not to be drafted into military service or any other public duty; he is to be excused from duty for one year, so that he can stay at home and make his wife happy.”

The most common Bible quote on marriage calls for women to submit to their husbands as they submit to God. So I was pleasantly surprised to find that making one’s wife happy is a priority place over national security and public service. It’s the first time I feel like a woman’s need has been put into consideration.

A Beautiful Promise for the Faithful
“If you obey the Lord your God and faithfully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, he will make you greater than any other nation on earth. Obey the Lord your God and all these blessings will be yours:  “The Lord will bless your towns and your fields.  “The Lord will bless you with many children, with abundant crops, and with many cattle and sheep.  “The Lord will bless your grain crops and the food you prepare from them.  “The Lord will bless everything you do.  “The Lord will defeat your enemies when they attack you. They will attack from one direction, but they will run from you in all directions.  “The Lord your God will bless your work and fill your barns with grain. He will bless you in the land that he is giving you.  “If you obey the Lord your God and do everything he commands, he will make you his own people, as he has promised. Then all the peoples on earth will see that the Lord has chosen you to be his own people, and they will be afraid of you. The Lord will give you many children, many cattle, and abundant crops in the land that he promised your ancestors to give you. He will send rain in season from his rich storehouse in the sky and bless all your work, so that you will lend to many nations, but you will not have to borrow from any. The Lord your God will make you the leader among the nations and not a follower; you will always prosper and never fail if you obey faithfully all his commands that I am giving you today. But you must never disobey them in any way, or worship and serve other gods.

God Parts the Water a Second Time
This was a huge surprise for me. I didn’t know God parted the River Jordan so the people could walk through. The parting of the Red Sea is very popular but parting the River Jordan is hardly ever talked about. Granted it was a smaller feat by their magnitude but it isn’t less of a miracle in my opinion  ”It was harvest time, and the river was in flood. When the people left the camp to cross the Jordan, the priests went ahead of them, carrying the Covenant Box. As soon as the priests stepped into the river, the water stopped flowing and piled up, far upstream at Adam, the city beside Zarethan. The flow downstream to the Dead Sea was completely cut off, and the people were able to cross over near Jericho. While the people walked across on dry ground, the priests carrying the Lord’s Covenant Box stood on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan until all the people had crossed over.

Lord “Obeyed” A Human Being
I feel like God really loved Joshua. Compared to Moses, whose hands had to be held up the whole day for the Israelites to win the battle, the Bible says that Joshua spoke to the Lord and in the presence of the Israelites commanded the sun and moon to stand still and they obeyed. “The sun stood still in the middle of the sky and did not go down for a whole day. Never before, and never since, has there been a day like it, when the Lord obeyed a human being. The Lord fought on Israel’s side!” Other versions, express this differently, using terms like “listened”, “harkened”. Point is, God loved Joshua and didn’t make him have to keep his hands up the whole day to win the war (like He did Moses).

This post is 2 months late and I apologise. I had so much going on I didn’t make time to put it all together. I am working hard to catch up on May and June. Hopefully, July will be on time. As always, thank you for reading and may God even more than He has blessed me.