Deuteronomy 29 - Guard Your Hearts

God views the heart of His people and He is looking for people who will follow Him wholeheartedly in love. In this chapter God reminds his people of the ways He has sustained them and warns against turning away. He tells His people to guard their hearts so that they won't fall away from God's care. Deut 28:18 Make sure there is no man or woman, clan or tribe among you today whose heart turns away from the Lord out God to go and worship the gods of those nations; make sure there is no root among you that produces such bitter poison. I don't think that any of us knows for sure what evil we are capable of. When it comes to sin we need to perpetually guard ourselves against forces that rise up against God. Here are just a few:

Overestimation of self worth

No one here on earth loves us or thinks about us as much as we think of ourselves. From the time of Adam we humans are prone to convincing ourselves that we know enough to choose rightly and that we don't need to go back to God for our decisions. We discount our sin and overestimate our self worth. We are masters of self deception, that is why we need to be diligent students of the word so that we have the word of God empowered by the Holy Spirit to challenge our thinking and keep us pointed toward righteousness. 

Doubt

God has shown the Israelites over and over that no matter what they faced, whether man-made or natural forces, God is able to overcome any challenge and He loves and cares for His own. We have seen it in our own lives as we look back. How many conflicts and tribulations has God brought you through?  Yet, like the Isrealites, when the  next tribulation comes we are given to doubt. What will God do? How will we continue?  We wonder if God may have turned His back on us this time for some wrig we may have committed. My dear friend, God is faithful and He has given Hos promise to keep those whose faith is in Him.  We can trust and never doubt God. God does not change and His love for us endures. 

Competing forces 

Satan is a master of diversion. He can convince us to chase after the wind. He whispers in our ear that we should dedicate ourselves to doing good works and rest in our own efforts. He sends his people to woo us over to worldly living and to chase after worldly pleasures. We must guard our hearts against such lies and the way we do that is to feed on truth. 

Other gods 

There are heresies even within Christianity that would have us depend on something other than Christ's sacrifice alone for the assurance of our souls. False gods are everywhere taking in forms of Budda, philanthropy, wealth, power, science and more. We can be diverted from our wholehearted service when we are swayed by such temptations. The noise in our lives doesn't point us to God. We need to protect our ears from such noise and seek after God alone. 

Consider the forces at work in our lives and erect barriers and guards to protect us from anything that would stand against God. Then we will see how God blesses and protects us even more than we have in our past. 

May God richly bless you as you seek Him and as you serve Him.