the Third Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Discovering Christ Day by Day
Today’s Reading: Deuteronomy 5-7
“Because the Lord loved you…”
Deuteronomy 7:8
How delightful our lives would be if only we could remind ourselves that all that we experience in this world, if we are Christ’s, we experience “because the Lord loved you,” because he loved us with an everlasting love. Let every rising sun awaken our souls with anticipation. Today I shall experience that which my heavenly Father has ordained for my soul’s good, because the Lord loved me. Let every setting sun remind us of the same. Throughout the day today, carry in your soul, my blood bought brother and my chosen, redeemed sister, the sweet remembrance of what we have read in these three chapters.
Ascension Gifts
First, Deuteronomy 5 gives us a blessed representation of the ascension gifts of our Lord Jesus Christ to his church. — “He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers” (Ephesians 4:11).
Moses was a faithful prophet and pastor to Israel, laboring for God’s people, even in his old age, to the very close of life, seeking God’s message for his people and faithfully delivering his Word. God’s servants are men who labor in the Word and doctrine, praying for God’s people, and caring for their souls day and night. Faithful pastors devote their entire lives and the entirety of their lives to you, showing you, again and again, all the great things the Lord has done, is doing, and has promised to do for you, “because the Lord loved you.”
“Because the Lord loved you,” he gave you his holy law, showing you what God requires of man. He gave us his law to show us our need of a mediator and substitute who could keep the law for us and satisfy its last demand. — “Because the Lord loved you,” he gave us that Mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, his darling Son, who was typified in Moses himself.
Triune Jehovah
In Deuteronomy 6:4 we are given the revelation of our great God in the trinity of his sacred Persons. — “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord!” Three times in this one very short verse God’s name is given three times to convey the glorious truth of a threefold character of Persons in the divine unity. Though he exists in three persons, he is one Jehovah. As we read in 1 John 5:7, — “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.”
All three Persons in the Godhead are constantly engaged from everlasting for the salvation of our souls. The Father’s everlasting love, the Son’s atoning blood, and the Spirit’s mighty operations of grace are bestowed upon us “because the Lord loved you.”
Sovereign Election
“Because the Lord loved you,” he chose you to be a special people unto himself, a peculiar people, under his special care, as the apple of his eye, before the worlds were made. “Because the Lord loved you,” he redeemed you with the precious blood of Christ. “Because the Lord loved you,” he brought you out of the bondage of sin and death in his saving grace by the mighty, irresistible hand of grace. — “Know therefore that the Lord thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.” Teach these things “diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”
