“This day, the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in his ways and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules and will obey his voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments and then he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor, high above all nations that he has made. And that you shall be a people holy to the Lord, your God, as he promised.”
– Deuteronomy 26:16–19
What great verses, what a great pronouncement. In God’s word upon his people. I tried to emphasize it as I was reading, because as I’m meditating on this text, I want to lead us to pray. I couldn’t help but notice, this day, the Lord, your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. And you have declared today that the Lord is your God, and the Lord has declared today that you’re his people for his possession. And I just thought about, obviously this was a special day. This was a pivotal moment in Old Testament history that we were reading about in Deuteronomy 26:16–19 here.
Today, you and I have an opportunity to obey the commands that God has given to us.
But at the same time, every day, I think about Joshua 24, “Choose this day.” Every day matters. And today, you and I have a decision to make and a fresh way today to do the statutes and the rules that God has commanded us. “And to be careful to do them,” verse 16 says, with all our heart and with all our soul. To declare today, the Lord is my God. And to hear him declare today that I am his possession, that I am his child.
Deuteronomy 26:16–19 Confesses That We Belong To God
So, we pray today. Oh God, we confess, you are the Lord, our God. We confessed it yesterday. By your grace, we will confess it tomorrow, and we confess it today. You’re the Lord, our God. We belong to you, and we praise you for your pronouncements over us today, for your new mercies toward us today, for your love for us today, for the fact that we’re your children today, and that we have the privilege of walking in your rules and your statutes and your laws and your commands today.
We Are Reminded That We Obey And Live By God
And so we say yes today, we choose to serve you. Yes, today we choose to love you. We want to honor you, glorify you, obey you. We choose today to live our lives under your Lordship, to glorify you today. God, we pray. Deuteronomy 26:16–19, help us to obey you wholeheartedly, love you wholeheartedly, glorify you maximally today, this day. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
