9.20.25 ~ Stand Together
Good morning!
In last night's zoom call we. reached beyond our imagination (climbing a ladder) and we chose to stand together/nitzavim as we entered into His covenant; which is not too difficult for any of us! But is mandatory if we want to live life to the fullest, experience His profound protection and much more. Are you in covenant with Him?
“Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. “All of you stand/nitzavim today before the LORD your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water—“that you may enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into His oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today, “that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, “but with him who stands here with us today before the LORD our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today (Deut. 29:9-15)
What does all this mean? It means that our appointed time in the Valley of Decision is upon us (Joel 3:14). All the facts that we will ever need to know have now been laid on the table; all the important issues of life have been addressed. The relative costs associated with accepting Yahweh's proposal of Covenant lifestyle on the one hand, and with rejecting it and choosing to follow our own constantly shifting sense of good and evil, right and wrong, morality and immorality, fairness and unfairness, pleasure and pain, and knowledge and ignorance, on the other hand, have been made abundantly clear. Moses is finally ready to call upon us to make the critical choice between the pathways.
"Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that stands here with us this day, before the Lord our God and also with those that are not here with us this day." (Deut. 29:14,15)
We are finally going to have to select one or the other – i.e. the Bridegroom’s Pathway or act like a 'runaway bride'. To accept and embrace the honor and the responsibility of being and functioning every moment as a Covenant Partner to the Most High or NOT to accept or embrace that role. As Shakespear said in the play "Hamlet"..."to be or not to be, that is the question."
What will be your choice? Will you choose to walk in the well defined pathways of Covenant with the Bridegroom-King to which Moses has been calling us? Or will you choose the pathway of the prodigal to which fallen human flesh – and the easily distracted human mind – are inclined? That is the question! More on that during this morning's zoom call.
Will you choose the narrow pathway that the Bridegroom-King has blazed to lead us back to the tree of life – or will you choose instead the broad freeway that runs by every slave market that rebroadcasts the siren song of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Enquiring minds want to know :-)
The choice is not just one of pathways – it is one of destinies (Deut. 30;9,10). And this choice comes to real people, living in real time, choosing between real alternatives. The choice all boils down to:
1. who we do and do not love,
2. who we do and do not trust, and
3. what kind of destiny we do and do not want for our children and children’s children.
Are you a leader? Please stand!
Are you an elder? Please stand!
Are you a scribe? Please stand!
Are you in the prime of life? Please stand!
Are you a child? Please stand!
Are you a woman of childbearing age? Please stand!
Are you a foreigner by birth who has recently embraced Most High, the Covenant People, and the ways of Torah? Please stand!
Are you one who is studying with us who was not even born, much less present, when Moses delivered his speeches on the Plain of Moav? (That's all of us :-) Please stand!
Do you want to stand on that coming Day (Psa. 24)? Please stand now.
Look around you. You are part of a great company. Many thousands are standing alongside you. Individually and collectively, we are joining Yahweh's Great Cloud of Witnesses (Heb. 11-12).
Why stand, you ask?
"in order that He can establish us as a people for Himself, and be God to us..." (Deut. 29:13)
Shabbat shalom & Chag sameach/happy feast season!
Shalom,
Alan
“Therefore keep the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do. “All of you stand/nitzavim today before the LORD your God: your leaders and your tribes and your elders and your officers, all the men of Israel, your little ones and your wives—also the stranger who is in your camp, from the one who cuts your wood to the one who draws your water—“that you may enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into His oath, which the LORD your God makes with you today, “that He may establish you today as a people for Himself, and that He may be God to you, just as He has spoken to you, and just as He has sworn to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. “I make this covenant and this oath, not with you alone, “but with him who stands here with us today before the LORD our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today (Deut. 29:9-15)
What does all this mean? It means that our appointed time in the Valley of Decision is upon us (Joel 3:14). All the facts that we will ever need to know have now been laid on the table; all the important issues of life have been addressed. The relative costs associated with accepting Yahweh's proposal of Covenant lifestyle on the one hand, and with rejecting it and choosing to follow our own constantly shifting sense of good and evil, right and wrong, morality and immorality, fairness and unfairness, pleasure and pain, and knowledge and ignorance, on the other hand, have been made abundantly clear. Moses is finally ready to call upon us to make the critical choice between the pathways.
"Neither with you only do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that stands here with us this day, before the Lord our God and also with those that are not here with us this day." (Deut. 29:14,15)
We are finally going to have to select one or the other – i.e. the Bridegroom’s Pathway or act like a 'runaway bride'. To accept and embrace the honor and the responsibility of being and functioning every moment as a Covenant Partner to the Most High or NOT to accept or embrace that role. As Shakespear said in the play "Hamlet"..."to be or not to be, that is the question."
What will be your choice? Will you choose to walk in the well defined pathways of Covenant with the Bridegroom-King to which Moses has been calling us? Or will you choose the pathway of the prodigal to which fallen human flesh – and the easily distracted human mind – are inclined? That is the question! More on that during this morning's zoom call.
Will you choose the narrow pathway that the Bridegroom-King has blazed to lead us back to the tree of life – or will you choose instead the broad freeway that runs by every slave market that rebroadcasts the siren song of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Enquiring minds want to know :-)
The choice is not just one of pathways – it is one of destinies (Deut. 30;9,10). And this choice comes to real people, living in real time, choosing between real alternatives. The choice all boils down to:
1. who we do and do not love,
2. who we do and do not trust, and
3. what kind of destiny we do and do not want for our children and children’s children.
Are you a leader? Please stand!
Are you an elder? Please stand!
Are you a scribe? Please stand!
Are you in the prime of life? Please stand!
Are you a child? Please stand!
Are you a woman of childbearing age? Please stand!
Are you a foreigner by birth who has recently embraced Most High, the Covenant People, and the ways of Torah? Please stand!
Are you one who is studying with us who was not even born, much less present, when Moses delivered his speeches on the Plain of Moav? (That's all of us :-) Please stand!
Do you want to stand on that coming Day (Psa. 24)? Please stand now.
Look around you. You are part of a great company. Many thousands are standing alongside you. Individually and collectively, we are joining Yahweh's Great Cloud of Witnesses (Heb. 11-12).
Why stand, you ask?
"in order that He can establish us as a people for Himself, and be God to us..." (Deut. 29:13)
Shabbat shalom & Chag sameach/happy feast season!
Shalom,
Alan
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