Crystal Writes A Blog

In Christ Alone

“Here in the death of Christ I live.” That’s one of the closing chorus lines for the lyrics in the attached video. It’s a beautiful lyric line founded on the words of Galatians 2:20. Here is that Scripture as written in the New English Translation (NET) Bible…

I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

We must live our new lives, the ones we walk after repentance for living unto ourselves, in a way that blesses our Creator, so He can dwell within us and bless us. This is His desire, and it has been His desire since the beginning.

In today’s reading from Deuteronomy 32:7 through Deuteronomy 32:12, we will continue in Moses’ poem/song, and we will see God’s plans for His children. Again, this is short enough to share, so I will paste the text from The Complete Jewish Bible here…

Remember how the old days were;
think of the years through all the ages.
Ask your father — he will tell you;
your leaders too — they will inform you.
When ‘Elyon gave each nation its heritage,
when he divided the human race,
he assigned the boundaries of peoples
according to Isra’el’s population;
but Adonai’s share was his own people,
Ya‘akov his allotted heritage.
He found his people in desert country,
in a howling, wasted wilderness.
He protected him and cared for him,
guarded him like the pupil of his eye,
like an eagle that stirs up her nest,
hovers over her young,
spreads out her wings, takes them
and carries them as she flies.
Adonai alone led his people;
no alien god was with him.

After asking Israel how they could repay God (who delivered them) with rebellion, now Moses is taking them back to the beginning. I think He wants them to consider both where they came from and where God comes from. He wants them (and us) to know that the whole idea of salvation belongs to The Creator. It is His design to be able to draw close to people who would otherwise not even be allowed in His presence.

I love how this says that when God divided all the people groups on the earth, He wanted His own people, and He chose the house of Jacob/Israel as His heritage. It made me wonder what led up to the heritage, so I looked up when He divided the people at the Tower of Babel, and it was in Genesis 11. Then, I searched for other significant events in Genesis, and I saw an interesting pattern.

With Adam, God put His creation in a garden, separate from the rest of creation. He wanted a one-on-one relationship, but evil got in and made a play. After Adam and his family were sent out from the garden, the amount of men who lived for God thinned out until it seemed most of the world lived as if there was no God at all. And then there was Noah. After the flood, God started again with eight people to spread His truth, and this time, they were not set apart. The enemy got in again, this time using the pride of man. They decided to–literally–build themselves up to the heavens to meet God. Then, when the people at Babel were divided, the ideas of God got divided like the misunderstandings in a game of “Telephone,” and suddenly there were almost as many gods as there were men. And then God found Abraham.

In the midst of the darkness and pride of man, God found a pure heart that actually believed in Him, and He rooted His people from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. These men gave a solid foundation to build on for service to the One and Only God Almighty, and it was a foundation the enemy could not so easily attack. So, the enemy put fear in the hearts of unbelieving men to attack them in yet another way. God blessed Jacob, but fearful men made the house of Israel into slaves. And then God found Moses who now writes of that slavery in his song.

Tonight’s poem wraps up with God’s protection and leading of His people. He led them from Abraham; He led them at the time of the poem; and those of us who serve Him now know He still leads His people. He leads His people Himself–no other gods with Him. In Yahveh alone, people will find everything they sought in a tree of knowledge, in a tower of Babel, in making gods of themselves, and in multiple false gods. Now, we have salvation that allows us to be called the children of God and become part of this wonderful heritage because of the newness of life we find in the blood that is… in Christ alone.

September 21, 2014 - Posted by Crystal A Murray (aka CrystalWriter) | Bible Study, Nonfiction, Torah Commentary | Bible Commentary, Bible study, Christ, Complete Jewish Bible, Deuteronomy, in Christ alone, lyrics, Moses, poem, salvation, Scripture, song, Torah commentary, Torah Portions