Sat.’s Devo - The Choice is Ours

Read: Deuteronomy 29:1-30:20; Luke 11:37-12:7; Psalm 78:1-31; Proverbs 12:1-20
God warned his children over and over about the consequences of being deceived by the worship of other gods of the people they would encounter. To be turned away by the splendor and spirit of other gods would cause all the curses to fall on them. Their sin will eventually eat away all the good in the land and their children will inherit a land full of diseases and waste.
But… when they woke up and realized how they got where they were and remembered the Lord, he will have mercy on them and heal their land and all the blessings will return. God will change their hearts and give them new hearts and return their curses to their enemies where they belong. They would become a delight to the Lord and vice versa.
He told them that obeying his law is not impossible or beyond their reach but it is in their mouth and in their heart. It is out of our heart that our mouth speaks (Luke 6:45), so if we want to know how we are doing spiritually, we need to listen to the things we are saying.
God has always been about free choice and he gave them the choice of following him and receiving the blessings or following dead, fake gods and receiving the curses.
In Luke, Jesus started his “woes”. If the religious leaders were going to attribute his works to Satan, then he was going to expose their lies. He started with the Pharisees and told them they looked good on the outside but inside they were full of robbery and wickedness. He called them “Fools” because they loved the praise of men and looking righteous when they were really spreading their unclean doctrine.
The experts in the Torah told Jesus that what he said to the Pharisees offended them so Jesus turned to them and gave them their “woe”. Jesus told them that they made up laws that were ridiculously calculated and impossible to keep. Their man-made laws made it so hard to get to God that they couldn’t even jump through their own hoops. They were total hypocrites who built monuments to the very prophets that their fathers killed. The blood of all the prophets from Abel to Zachariah would be on their heads in judgment. They would also be responsible for the fall of their own generation.
Needless to say, this did not make Jesus popular with the reigning religious regime. They made it their mission to twist his words and find some kind of fault in him.
Lord, help us to have mercy on those who are ignorant but to stand up for what is true.