Scripture Union Encounter With God 5th February 2023

Scripture Union Encounter With God 5th February 2023

Encounter With God Daily Devotional for 5 February 2023

Read and Digest Today’s Encounter With God Daily Devotional Message for Today.

TODAY’S TOPIC: SAVED BUT STUBBORN

SCRIPTURE: Psalm 81

‘0 Love that wilt not let me go, / Irest my weary soul in thee.’1 This is a psalm in two parts. It starts on a note of exuberant worship, with a call to celebrate a corporate festival marking God’s action in freeing the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. Then, from verse 6 onwards, our attention shifts. It’s as though we have been raised up, out of the throng of noisy praise, to a place where we can hear the very voice of God.

God’s words are extremely revealing. The difficulty he pinpoints is that the Israelites do not seem to understand, or even want to know, what they were saved for. Having been rescued from captivity in Egypt, they are refusing to listen to God (v 11). It’s as though they think they no longer have any need for him, now that he has ‘removed the burden from their shoulders’ (v 6); ‘would not submit to’, in verse 11, may be more accurately rendered ‘did not want’.2 God, however, longs for them to know the full nature of their salvation: to live with him as his people, to listen to him and to follow his ways (v 13). Do you hear the voice of God, longing for you to listen to him, yearning for you to enter into the fullness of life with him that Christ has given so much to obtain?

God lays out before the people a vision of what would happen if they would only listen’ to him (vs 8,13). He would quickly ‘subdue their enemies’ (v 14) and they would be fed with ‘the finest of wheat’ and honey from wild bees (v 16), echoing the song of Moses.3 Ultimately, however, God wants his people to be motivated not by what he can do for them but simply by who he is: ‘I am the Lord your God’ (v 10).

Come before God in silence. Thank him for Jesus’ love and his sacrifice. Recommit yourself to listen to his voice. 1 George Matheson, 1842-19062 Beth Tanner, The Book of Psalms, Eerdmans, 2014, p639 3 Deut 32:13

Bible Reading: Exodus 23,24 ; Matthew 26

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