Promise of the Year 2017
.. "FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD IS HE WHO GOES WITH YOU, TO FIGHT FOR YOU AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES, TO SAVE YOU Deu:20:4".
I thank and praise God along with my church for giving us a blessed promise from the Bible for the year 2017. We find that in the book of Deuteronomy chapter 20 verse 4. "FOR THE LORD YOUR GOD IS HE WHO GOES WITH YOU, TO FIGHT FOR YOU AGAINST YOUR ENEMIES, TO SAVE YOU DEU:20:4". I would like to split this verse into four parts and meditate upon them.
The Lord your God:
In Exodus 20:2 we read, "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". Praise God for He has brought us out of the land of Egypt, that is from the house of bondage. The children of Israel were as slaves in Egypt, for many years. Likewise, we the chosen people of God also were under so many bondages. We were slaves to sin, sinful habits, the lust of the world and to Satan himself. Jesus said "if you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of this world, but I chose you out of the world, the world hates you (John: 15:19). Also He says about His disciples that they are not of the world, just as He is not of the world. Though we live in this sinful world, our Lord God does not want us to be slaves to this world. So He brought us out of this world (Egypt) to be a chosen people separated from the sinful world.
Why our Lord God brought us out of Egypt? In Leviticus 25:38 we read "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God". God does not want His people to be under bondage, but to be in a free land where God's blessings are abundant. In Exodus 29:46 we read "And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt that I may dwell among them, I am the Lord their God. So the second reason for God to bring us from the land of Egypt (the word) to show us that He is our Lord God and He loves to dwell amongst us.
So when a person is delivered from the bondage of sin and sinful world, he comes to have a personal experience with his Lord God. As God dwells with him, he personally experiences the Lord God in his life.
WITH YOU:
According to this promise the Lord our God, goes with us all through this year 2017. He is going as a king before us and also as a captain of the army. He goes before us like a good Shepherd as the Shepherd goes before His sheep. He has promised us in Exodus: 33:14, "My presence will go with you". Since the Almighty God is going with us we need not worry about anything. He said to Jacob, "Behold I am with you and I will keep you wherever you go and I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you" (Genesis: 28:15). Emmanuel God is with us.
FOR YOU:
Our Lord God would go with you/us to fight for you/for us. We read in Exodus: 15:3 that the Lord is a man of war, also we read in Psalms: 24:8 that "the Lord is mighty in battle". Also we read from the scripture that the battle is the Lord's (I Samuel: 17:47).
There are so many enemies who come across in our lives. For no reasons sometimes people rise against us and try to fight with us. Sometimes the enemy may be stronger than us physically, financially and politically. But the Bible says, " Greater is He that is in you, than that is in the world". In Joshua: 23:3 we read that the Lord your God is He who had fought for you. In Joshua: 23:10 we read, "He fights for us" and in Deuteronomy: 3:22 we read that He would fight for us. So in the year 2017 God goes with us to fight against the enemies who come across in our lives.
We need not do any fighting. Jesus said to His disciples that ,"the world would hate you because it already hated me". Whoever is enemy to God's children is also an enemy to God
SAVE YOU:
Our Lord god goes with us to fight for us and to save us. Jesus is our Saviour. He is the Saviour of the mankind. He came to save us from the penalty of sin, from the power of sin. Many a problems we face in this world is due to sin. Also he saves us from the wicked ways of the world, not only that He saves us from the cunningness and from the evil traps of Satan. Satan always wants God's children to be deceived by him and thereby backslide from God's ways. But by His grace our Lord God stretches out His graceful hands towards us and saves us from all the wicked plans of the devil. Also He saves us from our sickness, weakness, troubles, financial problems and from all the struggles of this world.
May the Lord our God (your God) go with us all through this year to fight for us against our enemies and save us from all problems that come across in our lives.