Word of Encouragement (12/07/2022)
When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, 13 then you shall say before the LORD your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them. 14 I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice of the LORD my God. I have done according to all that you have commanded me. 15 Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ (Deut. 26:12-15)
Today, let us reflect on what this prayer is asking for. It simply asks God to bless the people of Israel and their land. Notice that the people of Israel are called “your people.” We can say that all the peoples of the world are God’s in the sense that they are under God’s sovereignty and are accountable to Him for all their actions, words, and thoughts. But the people of Israel were peculiarly God’s people through His covenant with them.
So then, this petition presupposes God’s covenant with Israel. To do so is to appeal to God’s grace because God elected her by His grace: “It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers...” (Deut. 7:7-8). God made it clear that His choice of Israel was an act of grace—His decision to set His love on her, which was not based on her intrinsic value. Even though Israel’s offering to the LORD had to be accompanied by her testimony of covenant faithfulness (vv. 13-14), this prayer showed that the ultimate basis of Israel’s prayer was God’s grace, not her merit.
What a wonderful privilege it was for the Israelites to view themselves as God’s people and ask the LORD to bless them because they were His people! We don’t always cherish and take good care of what is ours. Sometimes we are nicer to our acquaintances than to our families and friends. We make a vow to love our spouses in sickness and health, in want and abundance, in bad times and good times, but we often fail to keep our vow. But thankfully, that is not how it is with God. He cherishes His people as His prized possession (Ex. 19:5) and protects them as the apple of His eye (Ps. 17:8, Zech. 2:8). A mother may forget her nursing babe out of sheer exhaustion, but God will never forget His people; He will not succumb to weariness and sleepiness in His watchful care of them. Praise the Lord!
Notice also how this petition addresses God: God is the One who looks down from His holy habitation, from heaven. The Israelites had the tabernacle with them. God commanded it to be constructed so that He could dwell amid His people as they journeyed through the wilderness. But they knew that God’s true dwelling place was not the tabernacle. Later, Solomon built a temple, which was much grander in scale and majesty. Even so, Solomon wondered as he dedicated the temple, “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built” (1 Kings 8:27)!
This was important to affirm because the promised land depended on the rain from heaven for its agriculture (Deut. 11:10-11). God was the One, who would water their land with the needed rain as the One who dwelled in heaven. It was also important their God reigned in heaven as the sovereign Lord of all, far above all the chaos and troubles in this world. How could they trust and look to God for help if He were affected by, and subjected to, the vicissitudes of life just like them? But their God transcended the affairs of the world while deeply involved in them to accomplish His good will toward His people.
We know that God cared about His people so much that the Son of God was willing to come into this world and tabernacle among us (John 1:14). This He did because He could not save us from heaven. He had to come in the weakness of our flesh and bear the guilt and punishment of our sin, even to the point of dying on the cross. Oh, people of God, how much God loves you! “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things” (Rom. 8:32)? Knowing this, how can we not pray?