Day 519: The way back to God - Deuteronomy 30 vs 1 - 10
1-2 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you today, with all your heart and with all your soul, 3-5 then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there he will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.
6 And 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. 7-8 And the Lord your God will put all these curses on your foes and enemies who persecuted you. And you shall again obey the voice of the Lord and keep all his commandments that I command you today. 9-10 The Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your womb and in the fruit of your cattle and in the fruit of your ground. The Lord will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, when you obey the voice of the Lord your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes that are written in this Book of the Law, when you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 30:1- 10 English Standard Version
Can you see two things in vs 1-2 which show that God knows our hearts, and how He has made provision for what He foresaw?
Moses, as God's spokesman, used the word 'when' rather than the word 'if'. In other words, God knew the Israelites would experience His initial blessing in the land, but would then fall away into disobedience, and all the terrible things He had warned would come upon them. But He also says that when, in their distress, they remembered God's good commandments, they would turn back to Him and seek Him again. And how would God respond to that? (vs 3-5)
He would have compassion on them. More than that, He would restore the blessings they had previously known. We see the kind of person that God is. As Psalm 103:8-9 says: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger for ever.” This doesn't mean sin is a light matter in God's sight. Moses said good would follow when they and their children turned back so as to “obey God's voice in all that I command you today, and with all your heart and with all your soul.” True repentance of sin implies a heartfelt desire to start living in obedience to God.
But that still presents a problem. If they turned back to God with all their heart and soul, would they be able to walk in His ways and keep His commandments? Wouldn’t they quickly go back to wrong things again? It's like people today with strong addictions who are afraid of becoming a follower of Christ because they fear they will soon fall back into their addictions. But what was the encouragement Moses gave in vs 6?
Moses speaks of God's ability to 'circumcise' hearts. It's a strange picture to Western people but it essentially means that God is able to change hearts and remove our sinfulness in His sight. A prophet who lived in the time when the curses had come upon Israel stated this promise from God in a similar way. Speaking on God's behalf, he said: “I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19-20)
The encouragement we can take from this is that true conversion brings about an inward change in a believer's life, including the ability to deal with strong sins that had dominated their life. But the way back to God involves recognizing how we have broken God's commandments, and returning to Him with heart and soul. God willing, in the next few verses of this chapter we'll see how God made such reconciliation with Himself possible.