Once a Challenge, Now a Promise

“Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.” (De 13:4 AV)

Moses gave this challenge as a command and calling of God.  One that they failed at miserably.  For the N.T. saint who is saved, kept, and changed by God’s grace, the above verse can be seen as a promise!  Every saint of God fights the battle of sin.  The old man gets in the way, causes us to fail, and brings shame and guilt upon the soul.  We choose to do the wrong thing.  We see faults and imperfections that strive against the Holy Spirit that dwells within.  We can look at the above verse as another condemnation on our failures.  But that will only take us further down the road of missteps.  If we choose to look at it as a promise, then we are on the road to victory.  The child of God can look at that verse as our eternal eventuality.  There will come a day when the verse above defined our every action, thought, or disposition.  Without veering away from perfection unto God, the above verse will be our definition of existence.  Glory to God!

Lest we become lax in our disciplines, it might be helpful to remember that since the above verse is a promise, we can also ascribe it as a challenge and goal.  It is possible, but not probable, to live a perfectly sinless life prior to our glorification.  Battling what we are and were, to become what we ought to be, is a lifelong battle.  Rather than be discouraged at the failures, we can look back at what we used to be and what we are now.  If there is improvement toward Christlikeness, no matter how small, we can rejoice that the LORD did a work in an otherwise hopeless situation.  We cannot make any substantive changes while relying on our own abilities.  To think that we can is going down the road of arrogance and pride.  Conforming to an outward righteousness because we are highly disciplined without relying on the Holy Spirit to do the work makes for a self-righteous person.  If there are any changes, it is because the LORD did it and not us.  Looking at the changes that have come, we can have hope in the promise above.  We will walk after the LORD our God without any faltering or failing.  We will fear Him, and only Him.  With eternity as our existence and in the presence of God, there is nothing else to fear.  We will keep His commandments because the old man that tempted us to break them is destroyed.  We will obey His voice because His voice is the only voice we will hear.  We will serve Him because there is no greater to serve.  And we will cleave to Him forever and ever because He alone meets every possible need.

Don’t let the devil remind you of failures and sins of the past.  Don’t let him discourage you with the reminder that you will probably sin in the future.  Don’t let the adversary repeatedly state the obvious — that some of your troubles are consequences from wrong decisions of the past.  If the LORD has forgiven you, that is all that matters.  When the adversary reminds you of your human nature and the path of poor decisions that lay therein, remind him of the promise above.  We may not have always pleased the LORD.  If the truth be known, perhaps we have disappointed Him more than we have pleased Him.  But we have a promise the adversary will never have.  We have the promise of perfection.  We have the promise of glorification.  We have the promise of eternal Christlikeness.  Not because we earned it.  Not because we deserve it.  Rather, we have the promise of perfect Christlikeness by the grace of God and the blood of Christ.