DEUTERONOMY 26:16-19 – “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.”

THEME OF THE DAY. LIFE AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE. Please take time and read today’s scripture over and over. Do so prayerfully. Do so with a desire to see the heart of God toward His people. And do so seeking the insight on what God desires and intends for His people. As I did this for my own soul’s sake, I was struck with the thought – “This is really defining how life is supposed to be lived.” But I also knew by personal experience and observation, this isn’t how life is lived. All of us suffer the consequences of what happened in the Garden of Eden. Sin wrecked everything. It wasn’t a mistake our first parents made. It was a catastrophic event that ruined humanity and brought indescribable pain, grief, sorrow, suffering, and carnage into every single human being ever to live. Sin made life not as it is supposed to be, but God, in His love, sent the Lord Jesus to restore a people who would be enabled to live life as it supposed to be, not perfectly, but sincerely with the sure hope of going to a place where this truth will be fully experienced. So, what does it look like to live life as it is supposed to be? Three things from today’s scripture.

First, we are created to live life in obedience to God’s Word – This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. And this obedience is motivated by love for Him, not dull religious obligation to Him. Remember this. The Gospel of the Lord Jesus has given us the capacity and desire to obey God out of love for God (Romans 5:1-5). We obey because we love. It is our delight and privilege and that is the way life is supposed to be lived.

Next, we are the prized possession of God to live out this position for His glory – And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession. Do we believe this? Are we gripped with the magnitude of God’s grace that He would say, “My jewels. My treasures of whom I delight in”? Friends, this is the power in the Christian life and the way life is supposed to be lived; in the conscious awareness of being owned by God and directing all of our lives to please Him who bought us at such price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Finally, life is supposed to be lived in growing conformity to the holy image of our God – you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God. There is no such person as an “unholy Christian.” The purpose of salvation is to create a holy people, a people conforming to the image of our Holy God in speech, character, and actions. The Apostle Paul reminds of this purpose – even as he (God the Father) chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1:4).

Life as it is supposed to be; obeying our God, living out our adopted position as His treasured possession, and striving to be more and more like Him. Are we seeing it? Or better yet, are we seeking to live life as it is supposed to be?

PRAYER: “Father, I praise You for restoring in me, through the Gospel, the capacity to live life as you intend.”

QUOTE: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that we could be restored to love Him back.”