Deuteronomy 9:6: “Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

February 24th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

As Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land, there was a looming spiritual danger ahead. Once inside the land, living a blessed life, they would face the danger of feeling morally better than the other nations. They would begin to think that they deserved every good thing they had received from God because of their own righteousness. So God warned them in advance, through Moses, of the temptation toward spiritual pride. The antidote was to be constantly reminded that they were being sustained by God’s grace alone. Left to themselves, they were in fact, “a stiff-necked people.” How important it is for us as believers to remember our own lack of any personal righteousness and that the blessings we receive from God are based on Him—not us.

Pride was the underlying sin in the Garden and in Satan’s fall from heaven. It seems the closer we are to God, the easier it is to fall into the sin of spiritual pride. Perhaps this is why Jesus began the greatest sermon ever delivered, the Sermon on the Mount, with the words “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3). Being poor in spirit does not mean being poor-spirited or not having a backbone. It means having a correct estimation of one’s self. We are spiritually bankrupt people. Each of us is born into this world spiritually dead, as we see in Ephesians 2:1: “And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Being “poor in spirit” means recognizing that fact, understanding that we are lost, destitute, and needy apart from God.

Jesus says that recognizing this characteristic of being poor in spirit will make us happy. Most people in our society today would argue the opposite. Conventional wisdom would say, “Happy are the successful, the powerful, the rich, the famous, the aggressive, the self-reliant, the self-confident, and the glamorous.” But God says that it is only when we realize that we are poor in spirit, needy, and spiritually dead that we can be saved. Isaiah 66:2 says, “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.” When we come to Him empty handed, we can have fellowship with Him, and that is where true happiness lies.

“LORD, we worship before You, remember than there is nothing good in us, and that it is by Your grace and shed blood alone that we can have fellowship with You.”

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Deuteronomy 9 KJV

¹ Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself, cities great and fenced up to heaven, ² A people great and tall, the children of the Anakims, whom thou knowest, and of whom thou hast heard say , Who can stand before the children of Anak! ³ Understand therefore this day, that the LORD thy God is he which goeth over before thee; as a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and he shall bring them down before thy face: so shalt thou drive them out, and destroy them quickly, as the LORD hath said unto thee. ⁴Speak not thou in thine heart, after that the LORD thy God hath cast them out from before thee, saying, For my righteousness the LORD hath brought me in to possess this land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD doth drive them out from before thee. ⁵ Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land: but for the wickedness of these nations the LORD thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that he may perform the word which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. ⁶ Understand therefore, that the LORD thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness; for thou art a stiffnecked people. ⁷ Remember, and forget not, how thou provokedst the LORD thy God to wrath in the wilderness: from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the LORD. ⁸ Also in Horeb ye provoked the LORD to wrath, so that the LORD was angry with you to have destroyed you. ⁹ When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the LORD made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: ¹⁰ And the LORDdelivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the LORD spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly. ¹¹ And it came to pass at the end of forty days and forty nights, that the LORD gave me the two tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant. ¹² And the LORD said unto me, Arise, get thee down quickly from hence; for thy people which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt have corrupted themselves; they are quickly turned aside out of the way which I commanded them; they have made them a molten image. ¹³ Furthermore the LORDspake unto me, saying, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: ¹⁴ Let me alone, that I may destroy them, and blot out their name from under heaven: and I will make of thee a nation mightier and greater than they. ¹⁵ So I turned and came down from the mount, and the mount burned with fire: and the two tables of the covenant were in my two hands. ¹⁶ And I looked, and, behold, ye had sinned against the LORD your God, and had made you a molten calf: ye had turned aside quickly out of the way which the LORD had commanded you. ¹⁷ And I took the two tables, and cast them out of my two hands, and brake them before your eyes. ¹⁸And I fell down before the LORD, as at the first, forty days and forty nights: I did neither eat bread, nor drink water, because of all your sins which ye sinned, in doing wickedly in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger. ¹⁹ For I was afraid of the anger and hot displeasure, wherewith the LORD was wroth against you to destroy you. But the LORD hearkened unto me at that time also. ²⁰ And the LORD was very angry with Aaron to have destroyed him: and I prayed for Aaron also the same time. ²¹ And I took your sin, the calf which ye had made, and burnt it with fire, and stamped it, and ground it very small, even until it was as small as dust: and I cast the dust thereof into the brook that descended out of the mount. ²² And at Taberah, and at Massah, and at Kibroth-hattaavah, ye provoked the LORD to wrath. ²³ Likewise when the LORD sent you from Kadesh-barnea, saying, Go up and possess the land which I have given you; then ye rebelled against the commandment of the LORDyour God, and ye believed him not, nor hearkened to his voice. ²⁴ Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. ²⁵ Thus I fell down before the LORD forty days and forty nights, as I fell down at the first; because the LORD had said he would destroy you. ²⁶ I prayed therefore unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, destroy not thy people and thine inheritance, which thou hast redeemed through thy greatness, which thou hast brought forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand. ²⁷Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin: ²⁸ Lest the land whence thou broughtest us out say, Because the LORD was not able to bring them into the land which he promised them, and because he hated them, he hath brought them out to slay them in the wilderness. ²⁹ Yet they are thy people and thine inheritance, which thou broughtest out by thy mighty power and by thy stretched out arm.