FROM TODAY’S RECAP: - Deuteronomy 29:4 - TBR in Spanish - TBR in ASL Note: We provide links to specific resources; this is not an endorsement of the entire website, author, organization, etc. Their views may not represent our own. SHOW NOTES: - Follow The Bible Recap: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | YouTube - Follow Tara-Leigh Cobble: Instagram - Read/listen on the Bible App or Dwell App - Learn more at our Start Page - Become a RECAPtain - Shop the TBR Store - Credits PARTNER MINISTRIES: D-Group International Israelux The God Shot TLC Writing & Speaking DISCLAIMER: The Bible Recap, Tara-Leigh Cobble, and affiliates are not a church, pastor, spiritual authority, or counseling service. Listeners and viewers consume this content on a voluntary basis and assume all responsibility for the resulting consequences and impact.
Full Episode
Hey, Bible readers, I'm Tara Lee Cobble, and I'm your host for The Bible Recap. Yesterday, Moses finished telling the Israelites about the blessings for keeping their covenant with God and the curses for breaking it. Today, he opens by basically telling them, look, you're going to break this covenant. God knows it. I know it. You know it. So here's what you need to remember when that happens.
Repent. Turn back to God. He won't abandon you. He will restore everything you lost when you turned your back on him. Yesterday, we read in 29.4 that God has not yet given them a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. But today we read about what will happen when they do sin and are carried into captivity. God will use those circumstances to change their hearts.
Chapter 30, verse 6 says, "...the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." God promises that he will change their hearts. Then they will turn to him and begin to obey him. Finally! That's what happens when God gives someone a new heart. Their desires change.
Remember that the word heart here is a mingling of the words we use for heart and mind. It's where desire and will overlap. And it's what drives our actions. Without a new heart, it's impossible to walk in ways that are pleasing to God. The only way for their choices and decisions to reflect the things of God's heart are if He changes their hearts.
And since what He's after is our hearts, then even if our actions appear to be good on the surface, none of it matters if the heart isn't engaged. Only when He changes our hearts will our actions be ones that are responding to Him rightly. Remember how He always starts out by reminding them of the relationship He has with them before He tells them to obey?
It serves as evidence that He doesn't just want to be obeyed. He wants to be known and loved. Moses appeals to them again to obey God's commands and warns what will happen if their hearts turn away from God. He wants them to experience not just the land God has promised them, but also the life that is found in relationship with God. Moses can only speak on the experience of one of those things.
Moses doesn't get to enter the promised land. Since the day he met God, his assignment has been to live in the desert with sinners. But because he knows God, his experience contains a surprising peace and an irreplaceable intimacy. Even without the earthly benefits, his relationship with God is joy-inducing.
And despite how hard the Israelites have made his life, Moses wants joy and freedom for them too. He knows that a relationship with God is transformative and they need to be transformed. Moses tells the Israelites he's about to die and that he's not going to get to go into the promised land. This is probably terrifying for them. All they've ever known is Moses. He's been their leader for 40 years.
For some of them, that's been their entire lives. He probably wants to calm their fears because he knows firsthand how much fear can lead to rebellion. So he starts by reminding them that God is actually their leader. God himself will go before them into the promised land. He will fight against the nations that live there, and he will win.
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