Grant: Welcome to Torah Today Ministries. My name is Grant Luton.
Robin: And I’m Robin.
Grant: And we’re here to discuss another Breadcrumbs topic that we have been talking about among ourselves, Robin, for the last week or so. And you said we should do a Breadcrumbs episode on this. Usually I’m the one who says we should do a Breadcrumbs episode on something, but this has really been on your heart. So why don’t you introduce us to this topic?
Robin: Well, I’m sure that I’m not the only one because this is the subject that has been really emphasized and embedded in the passages of the portions that we’re in in Deuteronomy these last weeks and the weeks leading up of course to Rosh Hashanah (רֹאשׁ הַשָּׁנָה) and Yom Kippur (יוֹם כִּפּוּר). And we were talking among ourselves here in our Sabbath group and you and I, Grant, especially about the power of choice and why Hashem (הַשֵּׁם) has chosen to give us this responsibility to choose and how it’s an opportunity to draw close to him because a love relationship requires choosing, doesn’t it?
Grant: Well, the only power we have in this world is our power of choice. It’s why he made creation the way he did with the ability to choose and free will. That’s a big subject. That’s what sets us apart from the animals to a great degree. We can choose.
Robin: Right. Right. And so, of course, that famous and familiar verse in Deuteronomy 11 I’ve always loved, but never before have I pondered it and examined it and appreciated it like I have these weeks. So, it says:
“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. A blessing if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I’m commanding today, and a curse if you don’t listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but you turn away from the way which I am leading you.” (Deuteronomy 11:26-28)
So, let’s start maybe by just describing what is a blessing and a curse because I think that’s really misunderstood.
Grant: Well, I like the illustration that I’ve heard from several rabbis over the years and they say, “A blessing is like walking with the wind at your back.” So it just kind of helps you along and it’s not blowing in your face and it’s not loud and buzzing in your ears. So that’s like blessing, just the wind at your back.
Robin: There’s peace. No matter what’s happening, there’s this sense of shalom (שָׁלוֹם), right?
Grant: But curse is the wind right in front of you and you have to lean into it and fight it and it’s humming in your ears. You can hardly hear and it’s stinging your face. It’s chaotic. You can still make forward progress, but it’s really difficult. And we’ve all tasted both of those ways to live. And the funny thing about it is it’s mostly happening inside of our head.
Robin: Of course, that is where the power of life and death really resides. We’ve talked about it before, but never before has it been so clear. And then of course we jump to Deuteronomy 30.
Grant: Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, I want to revisit this just a quick second. And a lot of people, they hear the word curse, they think of the occult, witchcraft and somebody puts a curse on you like an abracadabra thing.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: That’s not what this is. Another way of thinking about blessing and curse is running a machine. Blessing is having oil in the gears. So, it runs smoothly, it runs cool, it runs quiet, efficiently, and it’ll run for a long time. But curse is like you run it without any oil in the gears. It’ll go, but it won’t go as long. It’ll get hot. It will get loud. And there’s damage going to be caused to the machine. So, it’s not like it won’t run at all, but it’s not going to run well. So, we want God’s blessing.
Robin: Now, you’re… I’m sorry. Go ahead.
Grant: I was just going to say along those lines, we’ve tried to emphasize to one another and to each other as we’ve studied these portions together that it’s so important to understand along what you’re saying, same lines, is that when we align our thoughts, it begins with our thoughts and our will and then it’s going to work its way out in how we live.
Robin: Yes. With God’s ways, right? With his word, with his Torah (תּוֹרָה).
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: Then the reward for obedience is built in absolutely to the life of obedience. It’s the obvious result and consequence.
Grant: Yeah. On the same wavelength.
Robin: Yeah. The punishment for disobedience is built in. It is the consequence. It’s built in and of itself, the things that we experience as a result of straying from how he said to walk this life out. That’s the curse.
Grant: Yeah. Yeah. You know, we think of that verse in Romans that the wages of sin is death. And we tend to think of the boss paying out our wages on payday. And God saying, “Oh, you messed up here and here and here, so here’s your punishment I’m going to deal out to you.” And that’s not at all how the verse really reads. What it means is that when you sin, that sin itself is deadly to you. It’s unhealthy to you. Like you come up to a sharp curve and there’s a sign there. It says slow 25 miles an hour and you say, “Ah, phooey on that.” And you go 75 miles an hour around the curve. You don’t get punished for going fast. You just wreck your car because that’s the consequences of going too fast on the curve.
Robin: Yeah. And also your translation said that the blessing if you hear the commandments. The word shema (שְׁמַע) is also the word for obey, right? Because they’re…
Grant: Yes.
Robin: They’re a package deal. So what we need to understand, the enemy wants to convince us that obedience to God means we lose out on the fun.
Grant: Exactly.
Robin: But God says, “No, I’m the source of every pleasure. I’m the source of everything good. And if you live your life like I live my life, my commandments are there for your life. They’re for your good. If you align your life with how I live, you’re going to have long life. It’s going to be fruitful. It’s going to be good. It’s going to be filled with joy. And the sorrows that do come, you come through them, okay? Because you’ll still know how the story ends.”
Grant: Mhm.
Robin: So he wants us to align our lives with his. He’s our creator. He knows how our lives should be lived. And I think this really came home to me in a fresh way recently when I was reading Proverbs 2. And it emphasizes how if we seek out the truth with our whole heart and with a determination to align our mind and our soul with it, the result is that we’re going to be guarded. We’re going to be protected. How his wisdom and understanding guards and protects and watches over us. And it’s a companion to us. There’s no better way to live. And God is not trying to keep us from enjoying pleasures. He created every pleasure. He wants to guarantee we enjoy them all, but we do them in a wholesome, healthy way that gives life instead of takes life.
So, he’s on our side. But we’re living in a time and in a world, not a new story, but it seems to be a louder message these days that the commandments of God are antiquated and that they’re irrelevant and silly and even wicked because it excludes people who need more compassion. So all of that can be really confusing to us.
Grant: Yeah. Well, you know, we live in a time when every man does what’s right in his own eyes, and that always leads to chaos. And that’s the message that Moses was encouraging the people in these portions to resist.
Robin: Yes.
Grant: Don’t live according to what you think is right.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: That is what’s getting you into trouble. There’s a way that seems right to a man, but the ends are death ways.
Robin: Exactly.
Grant: So, that brings us to the other passage of Deuteronomy. Now, the one we read was from Deuteronomy 11. This is 19 chapters later. This is right near the end of the book, the last day of Moses’ life. And he doubles down on what he said in chapter 11. So, here it is. We’ll start in chapter 30:15. He says:
“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.” (Deuteronomy 30:15)
Robin: Yeah.
Grant:
“If you obey the commandments of Adonai (יהוה) your God that I command you today by loving Adonai your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply and Adonai your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it.” (Deuteronomy 30:16)
And then if we move on down to verse 19, he reiterates this:
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So, choose life.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)
It’s interesting. We have to be commanded to choose life, isn’t it? Because so many people don’t choose life.
Robin: Well, we don’t even realize we have a choice.
Grant: No, they’ll choose fun and with it they get death. If you choose life, with it you get fun.
Robin: Or we think we’re just a victim of our circumstances and there are no choices to make.
Grant: So he says:
“So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving Adonai your God, by obeying his voice, by holding fast to him, being one with him, hanging on for dear life to him. And this is your life and the strength of your days that you may live in the land which Adonai swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20)
Robin: And when I read that, I think about those who left Egypt, but they didn’t make it into the land because they didn’t choose life. They didn’t choose the blessing. They didn’t choose to obey God, to love him, to keep his commandments. And they died in the wilderness.
Grant: Mhm.
Robin: They didn’t make it across into the land because they did not choose life. Or I think too, they had heard what he said clearly and had seen it clearly at one point and then they started to doubt it and they started to forget it. And I’ve come to realize that when I doubt what God’s word says, it really creates a very distorted view of him, of what he has said, his commandments. And I also begin to forget the consequences of it.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: And then you just begin to have distance.
Grant: Yes. And I think the key word is distance.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: So I was just going to ask you, define life and define death.
Robin: Life is oneness.
Grant: Connection. Yeah.
Robin: And connection and unity. Death is disconnection, separation and aloneness.
Grant: Yeah. Well, think about it. When a person dies, they don’t cease to exist, but their body and their soul separate.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: When a marriage dies, the man and the woman don’t cease to exist, but they separate. When a friendship dies, the same thing. When a company dies, whatever dies, there’s a separation takes place. And God’s heart is broken because his people are starting to allow separation to occur even after everything he had done to demonstrate his love to them.
Robin: I was fascinated just this morning, Grant, as I was in Deuteronomy 32. And he says:
“Because you broke faith with me in the midst of the sons of Israel.” (Deuteronomy 32:51)
And he reiterates and recounts how they did that. And he says:
“And you didn’t treat me as holy or set apart in the midst of the people, for you shall see the land at a distance.” (Deuteronomy 32:52)
It’s going to be far from you. You won’t be able to experience it directly like I want you to.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: I thought that was so tragic.
Grant: It is.
Robin: But also very familiar.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: Because this is the time of year…
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: …that he is calling his people back, right, to closeness.
Grant: That’s for sure. You know, while you’re talking, I’m thinking the most miserable people that I know, and I think I’d speak for you as well, are not the people who don’t know God and have never had a relationship with him. It’s not them, even though they’re not always the happiest either. It’s the people who have known him or claim to know him, who’ve had a conversion experience, but they keep him at arm’s length. It’s like, “Okay, Lord, I want you in my life, but you stay right there, and I’ll call on you if I need you, but I just I don’t want us to really be one.” It’s like marriages where there’s no intimacy between the husband and the wife, and they’re more miserable than if they weren’t married at all.
Robin: Well, I think that’s the key to this time of year and we’re going to talk about how we’re in the month of Elul (אֱלוּל) and what that really means for us because it’s like there’s something in the air, especially this year, that we’re sensing.
Grant: Well, Elul is the last month of the year.
Robin: It is. Yeah.
Grant: So, here’s a little rabbi trail. You can fast forward if you want to skip this, but the two most important months in the Jewish calendar are Nisan (נִיסָן) in the spring. That’s when Passover starts, right? And God says this will be the first of the months for you. So the months are counted from Nisan. But then you come around to the seventh month, which is Tishrei (תִּשְׁרֵי), next month. Right? And he says this is the turning of the year. This is when Rosh Hashanah is. That’s on the first of Tishrei. Rosh means head of the year, the beginning of the year.
Robin: Yes.
Grant: So the year starts in the seventh month, but the month starts in Nisan.
Robin: So Elul is the last month of the year. It’s the sixth month and we’re coming into the seventh, Tishrei.
Grant: Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Feast of Tabernacles all take place in Tishrei.
Robin: So day seven. So this is preparation is around the corner.
Grant: Yes. This is preparation for what’s about to come.
Robin: Well, you know, Rosh Hashanah, rosh, the head, not only means the beginning or new start, but I have been thinking in literal terms as in the head because it’s in our head.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: That the brain resides.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: And where choices are made. And it’s as if he’s saying return to choosing me.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: There are so many metaphors that he has given us in life. Grant, he’s called himself Father. He’s called himself our Shepherd. He’s called himself Judge, Husband, King, which is so significant.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: But the one that is so profound this time of year is when he invites us to enter into a relationship as a bride.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: And a bridegroom.
Grant: Well, you know, we didn’t discuss this, but I just discovered that Elul is an Aramaic word.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: It means searching. And it’s a time when God is searching for us and a time when we should be searching for him. And so I know you’re going to be getting to the king in the field where the king kind of leaves the throne room, comes down to the field. The world is the field and he wants to walk among us in a particularly intimate way. But he wants us to choose him.
Robin: Yes. And the thing that sets marriage apart from all other relationships that we can experience is the fact that it has to include faithfulness.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: And exclusivity and choice. You continue to choose the other every day, every minute of every day in order to promote that oneness and intimacy. You can break it by breaking faithfulness and by choosing others. And that’s where we’re at in terms of our culture. I’ve watched how people want to kind of create an exit strategy and not enter a covenant that is exclusive and requires faithfulness and choice because, well, what if I change my mind? And that has spilled over into our ability to understand how important it is to choose him.
Grant: Yeah. But like you said a minute ago, this is the time of year when he’s calling us into that relationship with him.
Robin: So let’s talk about Elul.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: Well, in the Song of Solomon, which is considered to be the most spiritual book in the Bible among the Jewish people, the Song of Solomon is this love poem. It’s all about a bride and the bridegroom and how her heart longs for her bridegroom and his heart longs for her. It’s like this betrothal period.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: And they can’t wait to get their hands on each other, to put it bluntly. And you can just tell they’re aching for one another. And it’s a very dramatic poem, a beautiful poem, incredible piece of literature, but deeply, deeply spiritual. And in chapter 6, verse 3, it says:
“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Solomon 6:3)
In Hebrew, that’s only four words. Ani l’dodi v’dodi li (אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי). A lot of wedding rings will have that phrase in Hebrew around the wedding ring.
Grant: Well, those four words, if you take the first letter of each word is aleph (א), lamed (ל), vav (ו), lamed (ל), that spells Elul (אלול).
Robin: Isn’t that something?
Grant: Yeah. So Elul is the time when our desire is for our beloved and his desire is for us and we’re like the commercial where the couple’s running across the field towards each other, you know.
Robin: Yes. That’s kind of what Elul is.
Grant: And there’s this beautiful legend that has been reviewed and visited for generations during this time of year where the king comes out of his palace and he enters the field.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: So that all the people who have been working in the field, knowing the king and loving him from a distance, have this unique opportunity to walk right up to him and to spend time with him and to be acquainted with him.
Well, you know, the rabbis in Judaism, they see that we have six days of work and then we have a Shabbat. So, six days we’re in the field doing our labor, sowing, weeping, reaping, harvesting, grinding the grain, doing life stuff, aware that the king is watching, right?
Robin: Yes. Yes.
Grant: But on Shabbat, we’re invited to the palace to go see the king.
Robin: Yes.
Grant: But Elul is when we’re out in the field working and the king comes to see us and there we are with our grubby clothes on and dirt under our fingernails, but the king says, “No, I just want to come and be with you.” But he doesn’t make us come.
Robin: No, he comes to the field and he waits and he hopes and he yearns for us to approach him.
Grant: Yes. Here’s a… I want to read a short passage, a couple paragraphs from a three volume set called “Inside Time: A Chassidic Perspective on the Jewish Calendar.” And it’s based on the works of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And there’s just these two paragraphs where he describes this experience of the king coming into the field. And it says:
“Shabbat is when the farmer is invited to the palace. On Shabbat, his overalls are replaced with the regulation livery. His vocabulary and manners are polished. His soul and fingernails are scrubbed of the residue of material life. On Shabbat, the farmer is whisked from the hinterland to the capital and ushered into the throne room to glimpse and experience the ultimate purpose of his daily toil.”
Robin: I love that.
Grant: “But Elul is when the king comes to the field. When the farmer sees the king in his field, does he keep on plowing? Does he behave as if this were just another day in the fields? Of course not. Elul is not a month of ordinary work days. It is a time of increased Torah study, more fervent prayer, more generosity and charity. The very air is charged with holiness. We might still be in the field but the field has become a holier place.”
And you know, Rosh Hashanah, which is the feast of trumpets, and 10 days later is Yom Kippur, it’s like a rehearsal for the day of judgment. And then five days after Yom Kippur begins the week-long feast of Sukkot, the Tabernacles, which is a picture of the world to come.
Robin: Yes.
Grant: Well, these fall feasts which all come together within a period of 15 days are a picture of Messiah’s return.
Robin: I know.
Grant: So, Elul is the month just preceding that practice. It’s like an awareness. It’s like in these days, these last days, the king is in the field. He’s come to see us. He says, “I don’t have time. Let’s connect now. Let’s commit to one another now.” And he’s closer than we’ve ever imagined.
Robin: And you know what else he’s saying, Grant? I have chosen you. But it’s time for you to choose me. And if you’ve chosen me in the past and you’ve allowed distance to happen, choose me again and draw close because I’m here waiting for you.
Grant: I was thinking of this picture and I love stories and I’m very visual as you know. And I pictured this king in the field and I started to consider all the reasons that all of us make for not approaching him and drawing close to him and reducing the distance that we’ve allowed to happen and occur.
Robin: And one of the things I think that we tell ourselves, the lie that comes into our mind is, is it really true? Is it valid? Is what he has told us about the world to come a sham?
Grant: Mhm.
Robin: Or should I put all my efforts into what I can see with my eyes and make the most of it?
Grant: Yeah. I think the other thing is, well, what if he’s an impostor? What if I trust someone and he’s not really true?
Robin: Or I think a real common way to think is there’ll be time later.
Grant: Yeah, I’ll get to it later.
Robin: Or here’s a big one. He’s got other more important people to spend time with. Why would he want me? I believe that’s a big one, especially in these days. There’s shame and we don’t understand his heart toward us.
Grant: Or I’m busy over here right now.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: I’ll get to it because I don’t have time because I’m busy elsewhere.
Robin: Yeah. What about this one? Others will see me…
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: And they’ll know that I’m one of those people.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: They’ll watch me walk across the field and approach him and suddenly I’m going to be identified with him. Am I willing to be identified with him? And he’s standing there letting us make this choice, Grant.
Grant: Mhm.
Robin: I think one of the biggest lies that we have come to believe is that we don’t understand that our life that we live is a result of the choices we make.
Grant: Absolutely.
Robin: I just read a quote by David Lieberman. He says, “As long as we believe that the quality of our lives is a result of circumstances rather than a result of our own proactive choices and response to situations, we remain powerless.”
Grant: Yes.
Robin: And Grant, that powerlessness is what you tried to describe earlier as a life of cursing.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: It’s distance from God, our creator. It’s distance from other people that we really need to be close to. And we begin to listen to the voices of people who don’t care about our soul.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: They don’t care. And they draw us away from the king who’s waiting for us to approach him. It’s such an important picture.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: If we could see it and respond and make choices and to choose him and to choose life, he says, “I have a life for you. Not a life of deprivation and separation, but a life of closeness and oneness and richness. Life will make sense. It won’t be without pain, but it won’t be meaningless. And you won’t be alone.”
Grant: Yeah, that’s so true.
Robin: May I return to Song of Solomon?
Grant: Yes.
Robin: Because that really isn’t anything different than what we’re talking about. It’s just a different perspective. Well, there are three very similar phrases here. One is in chapter 2, one’s in chapter 6, and then the third is in chapter 7. I read the one from chapter 6, but I want to read all three of them. The first one is in 2:16. It says:
“My beloved is mine and I am his.” (Song of Solomon 2:16)
Then the second one, the one we read earlier in chapter 6:3:
“I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” (Song of Solomon 6:3)
Now the first one started with “he’s mine and I’m his” but then this has switched it. “I am his and he’s mine.” So now the priority is that I belong to him.
Grant: Yeah, that’s the emphasis.
Robin: But then here’s the third one. It’s in chapter 7:10:
“I am my beloved’s and his desire is for me.” (Song of Solomon 7:10)
Grant: Imagine that.
Robin: It’s like when she made this shift.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: He belongs to me and I belong to him. But then no, I belong to him and he belongs to me. It’s knowing. And then the third one is I belong to him and his desire is for me.
Grant: Now here’s the interesting thing. We find this pattern in other places where we have a triplicate of sayings. But the first phrase has exactly 12 letters in it. The second one has exactly 15, three more. And the third has exactly 18. Three more again. 12, 15, and 18. What’s the significance of the number 18?
Robin: It’s the word chai (חַי), life.
Grant: Of course. Yes. 18 is such an important number in Judaism. When people ask for charity, they’ll say, “Will you give a chai towards this project?” That means will you give $18.
Robin: So as we realize I belong to him and his desires for me… You know, our problem is that we put our opinion of ourselves before God’s opinion of us and we put more faith in what we think than what he thinks. But I just this morning came across this quote from Brennan Manning. Some old notes, but I’d forgotten about it.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: And Brennan Manning said, “Real freedom is freedom from the opinions of others. Above all, freedom from your opinions about yourself.”
Grant: And Brennan Manning could say that with authority because Brennan Manning was an alcoholic his entire life. He would recover and he would be close to God. He’d write these incredible books. He would go around and he would teach and be very open about his alcoholism. Then something happened. He’d fall off the wagon. He’d be drunk again for a year or two. But then when he recovered, he would repent and get back on the wagon. You know, a righteous man is not one who never falls, but a righteous man falls seven times and rises back up again. And Brennan Manning was one of those.
So he could very easily have an opinion of himself that “I am just a waste. I’m trash. I’m just filthy rags. I am useless. I have no value at all to God.” But he was humble enough that he didn’t even trust his opinion of himself because he knew when he was sober, he was God’s man. And he lived as God’s man and changed many lives. He changed my life through the books he’s written.
Robin: You know, a conversation that we enjoyed recently was the difference between being free and no longer in slavery and being independent. God called his people out of Egypt like he called Brennan Manning and all of us out of slavery into freedom. But as we start to walk in that freedom, we begin to forget and we begin to not choose him.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: And then we begin to believe that we’re not worthy and we separate ourselves from others who are choosing him. And we become distant and we become very self-conscious and worried about what people are thinking of us.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: That’s not freedom.
Grant: No.
Robin: Independence from what God says and from what his people are saying is not freedom.
Grant: It’s slavery to a lie.
Robin: It’s slavery to a lie. And it puts us in a place of aloneness.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: But the good news is that if we find ourselves alone and separated in that field…
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: He’s there.
Grant: Yeah. Yeah.
Robin: And we can see him in the distance and we begin to close that distance. And I think like you told me the other day, if we make a small move toward him, he makes that big jump toward us and we connect again.
Grant: Yeah.
Robin: Well, you know, while you’re talking, I’m thinking the king was in the field 2,000 years ago and he’s in the field and those who heard his voice followed him. Their lives were changed and they in turn changed the world. But there are others who hated him.
Grant: And they crucified him.
Robin: Well, he’s getting ready to come back again. And there’s awareness, Grant. Everybody I know has this sense of awareness that things are serious.
Grant: Yeah. For people who have eyes to see, they know the king’s in the field right now. And it’s funny to me, interesting to me, I think that people who aren’t even aware of spiritual things are working harder than ever not to feel like life is serious right now. They just want to stay distracted and comfortable, but they’re not able to like they used to be.
Robin: Yeah.
Grant: It’s interesting.
Robin: It is.
Grant: Yeah. There’s a polarization taking place. And I see people who love God, loving him more than ever, who walk with God, walking closer to him than ever, who are obedient, just more obedient than ever, and just bearing more fruit than ever. Then I see those who are lukewarm becoming just ice cold. I see those who haven’t had a relationship with God becoming outwardly and loudly hateful of him and of those who follow him. There’s such a polarization taking place now. I see the holy becoming holier and the unrighteous becoming more unrighteous. And so when people say the world’s getting to be a really dark place, I always say, “Oh yeah, but there’s also it’s brighter than ever for those who are walking with him.” Both extremes are happening.
Robin: Both extremes are happening right now. And we have the power of life and death.
Grant: Yes.
Robin: To choose.
Grant: That’s right.
Robin: And I think it’s so well summed up once again in Deuteronomy in verse 47 of chapter 32. And Moses has just spoken and he says, “Please take to heart all these words that I’m sharing with you today.” And here’s the quote:
“For it is not an idle word for you. Indeed, it is your life.” (Deuteronomy 32:47)
It is your life. It is your life.
Grant: Yeah. We don’t live by food alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And that’s the choice he’s calling us to make. Live according to his word and have an abundant life. And there’s nothing to keep us from approaching him right now.
Robin: No, he’s just right there in the field walking by. So, we ignore him. And we don’t approach him once and done. We approach him over and over and re-approach him and reconnect with him.
Grant: Yeah, it’s time to return.
Robin: That’s right. Absolutely.
Grant: Well, I think there’s not much more to say, at least from us on this, but I think I speak for Robin when I say I hope that what we hear God saying to our hearts, what we’ve shared with you, that he’ll continue to confirm to you. And if you’ve been kind of riding the fence lately, make a choice and choose life.
Robin: Choose life. And there’s so much blessing.
Grant: Absolutely. So until next time, we wish you shalom (שָׁלוֹם) and may God bless.
Robin: Shalom.
