His Encouragement #181

Welcome to His Encouragement Thursday! I don’t know about you, but Thursdays are my struggle day of the week. By Thursday, I have already been working hard at school and at home, and I just wish it would hurry up and be Friday already. LOL! I definitely need a little extra Jesus time on Thursdays.

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You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that He may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14 (ESV)

I know, I know…what a strange set of verses for me to share for a Thursday Encouragement post. You may be saying to yourself, “Why is she sharing God’s command for building camp latrines? What could this possibly have to do with me?” Sit tight, I think I can show how these verses apply to us today.

I have read Deuteronomy so many times I have lost count. I know for a fact I have seen these verses many, many times before. But I admit, I’ve never really SEEN these verses before this past weekend when my pastor opened my eyes to what these verses actually say.

Yes, Deuteronomy 23:12-14 is God’s command for building camp latrines out in the wilderness. Kind of gross. If you grew up Catholic like me then you know there are some things you NEVER mention in public. In fact, maybe we don’t even mention these things in our private homes either. LOL! But, I do think these verses are uber important for us even today. For the first time ever, what stood out to me is WHY God gave this command.

God is good and clean and perfect and fully holy. He is the opposite of all that is dirty and icky and common. In fact, these verses from Deuteronomy tell us that defilements and indecencies force God to turn His face from us, including natural bodily functions. Simply put, God cannot be around poopy things.

God wants nothing more than to be able to spend time with His kids. We mean EVERYTHING to Him. But in order for Him to be able to walk among us, we must follow and obey His rules. God cannot be around filth and indecency. He just can’t. But He knows that sometimes we don’t have a choice … as the famous children’s picture book illustrates, Everyone Poops. But God wants to walk amongst us. Why? Well, as He states in Deuteronomy, it’s so He can deliver us and hand over our enemies to us.

Now you may be saying to yourself, “Ok, I can see what you are saying, Nicole, but how does this apply to me today? This all feels like a very specific command for a very specific people during a very specific time.” Totally see where you are coming from, and these are all very valid points.

Let’s look at the heart of the matter. God still wants to be near His kids today. I bet a million dollars that His desire to forge a relationship with us has not changed since the time of the ancient Israelites in the wilderness. But the truth is, He still cannot be around filth to this day. If we want to draw near to Jesus, we HAVE to be clean. We HAVE to be holy. We HAVE to be RESPECTFUL. And this is what I think these verses in Deuteronomy are implying to us today…RESPECT. Too often today, we make God our best bud. We come at Him as if He were a regular dude. I’m here to tell you that the God I worship is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). He has not changed, which means His commands have not changed. His desire is the same, to be near us, but in order to do that, we must respect His need for us to be clean and holy or He cannot be near us, and He will turn His face from us.

So, my request for you today, dear reader, is to examine your current relationship with God. Do you understand that He is deserving of utmost respect and honor? Do you act like He is God, your loving Father who is Creator of everything and King over all? Or do you treat Him and talk to Him as if He were no different than your earthly best bud? Do you make Him common? God deserves the respect of us honoring His wishes, and that means obeying ALL His commands, even the ones that seem like they no longer matter. Because when we do obey Him and honor His wishes, God is able to walk among us. I don’t know about you, but I really want that!

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NOW, IT’S YOUR TURN!

WHAT BIBLICAL VERSE IS ENCOURAGING YOU TODAY?