Thursday, January 12th, 2006
A Study on Love – Edition #9
The three things:
- Is there a fact to believe here?
- Is there a promise to trust?
- Is there a command to obey?
Midweek was good… but it always good to be with the brothers. I must confess, I didn’t want to go, but I went anyway. And I am glad I went. I was refreshed. And I found out that I am a journalist by taking a personality test. This is the findings:
I have a tendency to overextend myself in both my physical and emotional commitments. My proclivity to procrastinate and to overlook details complicates my circumstances. I often move on to new ventures without completing those I have already started. My charming personalities can show signs of irritability and over-sensitivity when I desire to please different people come into conflict. During times of stress, I feel alienated. I then engage in deceptions that serve to obscure what is occurring within me.
I find symbolic meanings behind the immediate circumstances. These meanings are construed as foreboding problems when I am under stress. Having a pervasive feeling of losing control over my own independent identities, I will feel virtually split apart by intruding circumstances. I will be "beside myself" and "just not all there" — as if something, or someone, has taken away the essence of whom I am. Not feeling like myself, I will become subject to my own feelings of shame for being a phony, a fake or an impostor. If stress continues to grow, I may attribute malevolent schemes to others in order to explain away my fears.
I will say that I agree to a good part of this. I do tend to take on more than I can handle at times. And I do tend to start things and move on before finishing them. I guess I need to work more on completing tasks before moving on to another task. Maybe that is why I gave up on reading the bible in a year. And maybe that is why I read four to five books at a time. I guess it makes sense.
Deuteronomy 7:1-26
1 When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you- 2 and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. 3 Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, 4 for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the LORD's anger will burn against you and will quickly destroy you. 5 This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh King of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands. 10 But those who hate him he will repay to their face by destruction; he will not be slow to repay to their face those who hate him.
11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.
12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the LORD your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your forefathers. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers. He will bless the fruit of your womb, the crops of your land—your grain, new wine and oil—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks in the land that he swore to your forefathers to give you. 14 You will be blessed more than any other people; none of your men or women will be childless, nor any of your livestock without young. 15 The LORD will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you. 16 You must destroy all the peoples the LORD your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity and do not serve their gods, for that will be a snare to you.
17 You may say to yourselves, "These nations are stronger than we are. How can we drive them out?" 18 But do not be afraid of them; remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt. 19 You saw with your own eyes the great trials, the miraculous signs and wonders, the mighty hand and outstretched arm, with which the LORD your God brought you out. The LORD your God will do the same to all the peoples you now fear. 20 Moreover, the LORD your God will send the hornet among them until even the survivors who hide from you have perished. 21 Do not be terrified by them, for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a great and awesome God. 22 The LORD your God will drive out those nations before you, little by little. You will not be allowed to eliminate them all at once, or the wild animals will multiply around you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, throwing them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24 He will give their kings into your hand, and you will wipe out their names from under heaven. No one will be able to stand up against you; you will destroy them. 25 The images of their gods you are to burn in the fire. Do not covet the silver and gold on them, and do not take it for yourselves, or you will be ensnared by it, for it is detestable to the LORD your God. 26 Do not bring a detestable thing into your house or you, like it, will be set apart for destruction. Utterly abhor and detest it, for it is set apart for destruction.
Detestable (adj.):
- Inspiring or deserving abhorrence or scorn.
- Offensive to the mind.
So many things in this world can be detestable. Eating worms and bugs, well, that’s just plain gross… and is definitely offensive to my mind, but it doesn’t make it wrong. John the Baptist ate bugs while in the desert. But for argument’s sake, wouldn’t it be hard to not take a nice are, a nice watch, or whatever if I had to “wipe” someone out? I am just glad those days of wiping people out are behind us, but I can definitely see how tempting it would be. And it simply boils down to keeping the covenant. Am I keeping the covenant with God? Am I living up to the promises I have made in the past with him? I know so many times before that I was coming up from a party and praying ever so much to get home safe. And the ever so routine promise “I will NEVER do this again.” And within a few weeks, the same situation would relive itself.
Covenant (noun):
- A binding agreement; a compact.
How strong is my word? I think it is much better than in days past, but who I am now is a reflection of the decisions of days long ago. Once a domino falls on another, the cycle is started. I am glad that God stuck his hand in there and stopped it before completion. I made a covenant with my wife, with my God, and with my fellow brothers. How strong is that covenant? When I say that I am going to do something, in my heart of hearts, do I live up to it? Do I want to live up it? Well, I want to live up it. But as the saying goes, the path to hell is paved with good intentions. I don’t want to be known as a guy who has good intentions; I want to be a guy that is not detestable to God. I want to be a man of faith and love.
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