The whole shootin’ match. 🔫

The whole enchilada. 🇲🇽

The whole shebang. 💥

The whole ball of wax. 🕯️

Verse 1 – “Do the WHOLE commandment.”

Verse 2 – “Remember the WHOLE way…”

In the KJV it’s “ALL the commandments” and “ALL the way.”

Go big or go home. 📣

Go all in.

Get all your bases covered. ⚾️🧢🏟️

Don’t go off half cocked.

Americans have a LOT of idioms for this. Which tells me it’s an important idea to us.

Dot your i’s and cross your t’s.

Every nook and cranny.

Leave no stone unturned. 🪨

Now, maybe this appeals to me because I tend to be a (selectively) detail-oriented person. I add selectively because – if you could see my laundry room and garage right now… (sigh). It’s either choose to ignore certain things or succumb to perfection paralysis. I choose to not stay on top of ALL the things because it’s not possible for me right now.

Israel is not given that option.

😎 Hebrew DJ: Keep it tuned in right here to WKOT 81.2 Sinai and Kadesh – All the Commandments. All the time.

Why do we have to keep going over the commandments? Because people forget.

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There is also a major contrast in this chapter between being in need and humbly depending on the LORD vs. being well-off and not depending on the LORD.

This is going to be contrasted from now to Revelation. The wise always conclude that it is better to have little and walk closely with the Father than to have much and forsake Him.

There’s a verse here that I’ve heard taken out of context so I want to address it.

“You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭8‬:‭18‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The prosperity preachers love this one. 🤑

They’ll read this single verse out of the context of the whole chapter and say, “God wants you to be wealthy! He is the one who gives you the power to be successful. And if you are walking in poverty, you’re not walking in the covenant. God doesn’t want His kids to be poor!” 💰💰💰💰💰

Fiddlesticks and nonsense. God is more interested in your character than your investment portfolio. It’s better to enter heaven as a poor man than go to hell a rich one.

The context of this verse is actually a warning about what tends to happen when people gain wealth – they tend to forget God and give credit to themselves and their hard work and shrewd investments.

If you can manage wealth to the glory of God and be a wise steward, more power to ya! I don’t begrudge anyone their wealth. (Well – I might be just a tad jealous of the folks with a beach house and a yacht but other than that…) 🛥️🏖️🏝️

This word of caution to Israel is not aimed at the poor. Because, if they possess the land and obey the commandments as God intends for them, poverty is not going to be a problem. Poverty has a way of keeping you humble and dependent on God. Wealth? Not so much. It’s the sneakier tempter of the two.

Just thought I’d kick that rock as I walked by.

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“And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” Deuteronomy‬ ‭8‬:‭3‬ ‭ESV‬‬

I once had a couple pet rabbits. 🐰🐰

It was my responsibility to feed them, clean their hutch and keep them supplied with water. 💦

I forgot. 🫤

They died. 🪦🪦

Lesson learned.

(My mother is a firm believer in the power of pets to teach children responsibility. Those poor critters.) 🤦‍♀️

The times when Israel went a little hungry or thirsty? That wasn’t God saying, “Oops! I got sidetracked over here managing the universe. Forgot to feed the fishies.” He let them hunger. On purpose. So they could witness the power of God’s Word to feed them.

To quote the great songwriter Andre Crouch – “if I never had a problem, I wouldn’t know that He could solve it, I wouldn’t know what faith in God could do.”

I bet that you, Dear Reader, have at least one significant need in your life today. It may be something in the natural like a need for reliable transportation, a physical healing, or enough money to cover the bills. It may be something internal – a need in your soul; a hunger or thirst for something money cannot buy.

I don’t know what the cause of your need is. It honestly may be the result of poor choices. But it may be that the LORD is at work – even in the fallout of poor choices. Consider the possibility that He is allowing you to hunger and thirst on purpose.

But I already know that man doesn’t live by bread alone. Learned that in Sunday school.

Yeah… But did you really? I thought I knew it too until I had $0.35 to my name and needed to do laundry in college. (If you missed that story, you’ll have to go back to the tail end of Numbers.)

There’s a difference between knowing something theoretically and knowing something experientially. Learning to persevere in faith during testing is no picnic. But I’m not aware of any shortcut.

And Yahweh fed them with something completely unheard of – manna. It may be that God wants to provide for you in a way that is not even on your radar – like Wonder Bread from heaven. But the Lord doesn’t send miracle bread until there’s nothing else to eat. It’s a test.

Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. But faith is tested by hard times. Sorrow. Difficulty. Lack. Being stuck out in a bleak and barren wilderness with nothing but manna and water from rock for years on end. No green. No soft grass. No hammock in the trees.

There are multiple metaphors for God’s people. We are called sheep but let’s not get stuck on that one. We’re also called soldiers.

🪖🎖️

Our best soldiers – the Special Forces guys – don’t get proven by soft beds and easy circumstances. They get pushed to the limits of human endurance – freezing cold, blazing heat, no food or water, no sleep for days on end. And in the middle of that they’re expected to still be able to think clearly, execute orders, maintain nearly superhuman stamina, and not give in to the lure of a cozy fire, a hot meal, and a nap.

“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” 2 Timothy‬ ‭2‬:‭3‬ ‭KJV‬‬

“that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death…” Philippians‬ ‭3‬:‭10‬ ‭KJV‬‬

This is why there are so many spiritual toddlers and teenagers in the church. Spiritual Adulting is hard. It looks a lot like suffering and death to the flesh. If it was easy, everybody would do it.

I was having a conversation yesterday about a situation where some Christian folks thought they were going to be asked to do a ministry. Then they weren’t. And they got their feelings hurt.

Well boo-dee-hoo. 🙄

Pardon my bluntness, but if you want to be a spiritual adult and a good soldier, you’re gonna need a lot tougher hide.

Can you imagine a group of Navy Seals standing at attention, and their captain names 3 men who are chosen for an assignment, and the rest of them start to tear up and get trembling lips because they didn’t get picked?

I don’t know much about the Seals but I’m pretty sure they don’t give a rip about personal glory. If they cared before, it was beat out of them in training. They don’t need to go pet a puppy or have a coffee date with a friend to talk through their hurt feelings because they didn’t get picked. If they aren’t focused on accomplishing the mission – regardless of who gets the credit – they might all end up dead.

It’s high time the Saints of God get a mission-focused, warrior mentality. And I don’t just mean the men. I mean the women too. And not in that dreadful, eye-roll-inducing, Disney-Marvel-girl-boss kind of way. I mean the kind of courageous, feminine warriors like Arwen and Eowyn in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

Found this about Arwen’s sword on Reddit: (it’s not cannon from Tolkien but rather a backstory invented by Peter Jackson but I’m here for it)… 🗡️

“Hadhafang was a sword once belonging to the Elven princess Idril. Hadhafang was wielded by Elrond during the battle between the Last Alliance of Elves and Men and the forces of the Dark Lord Sauron on the slopes of Mount Doom. The blade is inscribed with Tengwar runes in Sindarin that say “Aen estar Hadhafang i chathol hen, thand arod dan i thang an i arwen.”, which translates to “This blade is called Hadhafang, a noble defense against the enemy throng for a noble lady.” (In Sindarin “Arwen” actually means “noble (or royal) woman”).

C’mon. You can’t tell me that’s not cool.

🌏 Ok – back from Middle Earth…

Take a moment to think over your hunger and thirst. Dismiss any ideas that the Father is ignoring you or has forgotten. He’s testing you, Beloved.

“…that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭8‬:‭16‬ ‭KJV‬‬

Warrior up. The reward is still ahead. And the best is yet to come. 🌅