March 8: Fear not!

Deut. 31:16-32:47

Deuteronomy 31:1-6

Amplified Bible (AMP)

31 And Moses went on speaking these words to all Israel:

² And he said to them, I am 120 years old this day; I can no more go out and come in. And the Lord has said to me, You shall not go over this Jordan.

³ The Lord your God will Himself go over before you, and He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. And Joshua shall go over before you, as the Lord has said.

⁴ And the Lord will do to them as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, and to their land, when He destroyed them.

⁵ And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to all the commandments which I have commanded you.

⁶ Be strong, courageous, and firm; fear not nor be in terror before them, for it is the Lord your God Who goes with you; He will not fail you or forsake you.

Once again, lets take these words to heart. God of the angel armies goes before us! Fear not!!! These words are written over and over throughout His word. 

Take a good look at your situation right now. You're stuck, right? Its okay. Fear not. God goes before you.

Just continue to do the right thing. Be strong, courageous, and firm. God WILL NOT fail you or forsake you.

Moving on...

Deuteronomy 31:16-32:43  Amplified Bible (AMP)

¹⁶ And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you shall sleep with your fathers, and this people will rise up and play the harlot after the strange gods of the land where they go to be among them; and they will forsake Me and break My covenant which I have made with them.

¹⁷ Then My anger will be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them. And they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them, so that they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us because our God is not among us?

¹⁸ And I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they have done in turning to other gods.

¹⁹ And now write this song for yourselves and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, that this song may be a witness for Me against the Israelites.

²⁰ For when I have brought them into the land which I swore to their fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey, and they have eaten and filled themselves and become fat, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and despise and scorn Me and break My covenant.

²¹ And when many evils and troubles have befallen them, this [sacred] song will confront them as a witness, for it will never be forgotten from the mouths of their descendants. For I know their strong desire and the purposes which they are forming even now, before I have brought them into the land which I swore to give them.

²² Moses wrote this song the same day and taught it to the Israelites.

²³ And [the Lord] charged Joshua son of Nun, Be strong and courageous and firm, for you shall bring the Israelites into the land which I swore to give them, and I will be with you.

²⁴ And when Moses had finished writing the words of this law in a book to the very end,

²⁵ He commanded the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord,

²⁶ Take this Book of the Law and put it by the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against you.

²⁷ For I know your rebellion and stubbornness; behold, while I am yet alive with you today, you have been rebellious against the Lord; and how much more after my death!

²⁸ Gather to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers, that I may speak these words in their ears and call heaven and earth to witness against them.

²⁹ For I know that after my death you will utterly corrupt yourselves and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days because you will do what is evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger through the work of your hands.

³⁰ And Moses spoke in the hearing of all the congregation of Israel the words of this song until they were ended:

32 Give ear, O heavens, and I [Moses] will speak; and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.

² My message shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the light rain upon the tender grass, and as the showers upon the herb.

³ For I will proclaim the name [and presence] of the Lord. Concede and ascribe greatness to our God.

⁴ He is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.

⁵ They [Israel] have spoiled themselves. They are not sons to Him, and that is their blemish—a perverse and crooked generation!

⁶ Do you thus repay the Lord, you foolish and senseless people? Is not He your Father Who acquired you for His own, Who made and established you [as a nation]?

⁷ Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations. Ask your father and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you.

⁸ When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when He separated the children of men, He set the bounds of the peoples according to the number of the Israelites.

⁹ For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance.

¹⁰ He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.

¹¹ As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.

¹² So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.

¹³ He made Israel ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the increase of the field; and He made him suck honey out of the rock and oil out of the flinty rock,

¹⁴ Butter and curds of the herd and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams of the breed of Bashan, and he-goats, with the finest of the wheat; and you drank wine of the blood of the grape.

¹⁵ But Jeshurun (Israel) grew fat and kicked. You became fat, you grew thick, you were gorged andsleek! Then he forsook God Who made him and forsook and despised the Rock of his salvation.

¹⁶ They provoked Him to jealousy with strange gods, with abominations they provoked Him to anger.

¹⁷ They sacrificed to demons, not to God—to gods whom they knew not, to new gods lately come up, whom your fathers never knew or feared.

¹⁸ Of the Rock Who bore you you were unmindful; you forgot the God Who travailed in your birth.

¹⁹ And the Lord saw it and He spurned and rejected them, out of indignation with His sons and His daughters.

²⁰ And He said, I will hide My face from them, I will see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children in whom is no faithfulness.

²¹ They have moved Me to jealousy with what is not God; they have angered Me with their idols. So I will move them to jealousy with those who are not a people; I will anger them with a foolish nation.

²² For a fire is kindled by My anger, and it burns to the depths of Sheol, devours the earth with its increase, and sets on fire the foundations of the mountains.

²³ And I will heap evils upon them; I will spend My arrows upon them.

²⁴ They shall be wasted with hunger and devoured with burning heat and poisonous pestilence; and the teeth of beasts will I send against them, with the poison of crawling things of the dust.

²⁵ From without the sword shall bereave, and in the chambers shall be terror, destroying both young man and virgin, the sucking child with the man of gray hairs.

²⁶ I said, I would scatter them afar and I would have made the remembrance of them to cease from among men,

²⁷ Had I not feared the provocation of the foe, lest their enemies misconstrue it and lest they should say, Our own hand has prevailed; all this was not the work of the Lord.

²⁸ For they are a nation void of counsel, and there is no understanding in them.

²⁹ O that they were wise and would see through this [present triumph] to their ultimate fate!

³⁰ How could one have chased a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight, except their Rock had sold them, and the Lord had delivered them up?

³¹ For their rock is not like our Rock, even our enemies themselves judge this.

³² For their vine comes from the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of [poisonous] gall, their clusters are bitter.

³³ Their wine is the [furious] venom of serpents, and the pitiless poison of vipers.

³⁴ Is not this laid up in store with Me, sealed up in My treasuries?

³⁵ Vengeance is Mine, and recompense, in the time when their foot shall slide; for the day of their disaster is at hand and their doom comes speedily.

³⁶ For the Lord will revoke sentence for His people and relent for His servants’ sake when He sees that their power is gone and none remains, whether bond or free.

³⁷ And He will say, Where are their gods, the rock in which they took refuge,

³⁸ Who ate the fat of their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offering? Let them rise up and help you, let them be your protection!

³⁹ See now that I, I am He, and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand.

⁴⁰ For I lift up My hand to heaven and swear, As I live forever,

⁴¹ If I whet My lightning sword and My hand takes hold on judgment, I will wreak vengeance on My foes and recompense those who hate Me.

⁴² I will make My arrows drunk with blood, and My sword shall devour flesh, with the blood of the slain and the captives, from the long-haired heads of the foe.

⁴³ Rejoice [with] His people, O you nations, for He avenges the blood of His servants, and vengeance He inflicts on His foes and clears guilt from the land of His people.

We already know what happens when we turn away from this God who loves us with an everlasting love. We make our God jealous. So why stir God's anger against us? We are shooting ourselves in the foot when we do this. Sin is fun at first, then it turns self destructive.

"I will make my arrows drunk with blood." Wow. I do NOT want to encounter this. 

"Dear Jesus, I KNOW from past experience what happens when I go my own way! PLEASE give me the strength to go YOUR way only. I don't want to be stiff necked and rebellious. I don't want to quietly do things my way. I've tried this before and it NEVER has worked. Your blessings are so abundant to those who simply do the right thing. Break me and mold me Oh God. I want to say no to the flesh, the world, and the devil, and say YES to YOUR WILL and YOUR WAY. The way that leads to indescribable blessings in this life and the life to come. I praise You and give You honor. I bow before Your throne in adoration. You love me with an everlasting love. I cant even grasp the riches of Your love. Bless Your name, Jesus, AMEN."