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Compliments of First Fruits of Zion
reprinted by permission of FFOZ
Ki Tavo - כי תבא : "When you come"
Torah : Deuteronomy 26:1–29:8
Haftarah : Isaiah 60:1–22
Gospel : Acts 16-18
“Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways…” (Deuteronomy 10:12) What does it mean to walk in God’s ways? It means that we are to imitate the ways of God, in as much as we are able. The commandment to imitate God is one of the most fundamental principles of the life of faith. The Master expresses the idea, encouraging us to imitate God, “That you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:45)
In Deuteronomy 29, Moses laments that even though Israel has experienced God’s great salvation and seen His miracles and wondrous provision in the wilderness, they still have not been “given a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.” (Deuteronomy 29:4) Why would Israel, after seeing all of this and experiencing God in such a tangible and intimate way, be in need of reproof or warning at all? Why wouldn’t they henceforth follow God wholeheartedly? Because their hearts are not whole. Their hearts, like all human hearts, are wayward. Thus Moses pleads with them, “So keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.” (Deuteronomy 29:9) He knows that they will not. He knows the malignancy of the human heart. The thing that is needed is a new heart.
The prophet Ezekiel, speaking to God’s chosen people at a time when they were about to experience the coming curses for their unfaithfulness, looks ahead to when God would give the nation a new heart: “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” (Ezekiel 11:19–20) The heart of stone is stubborn, unable to be moved to love God in covenant fidelity. In other words, the heart of stone is unable to be circumcised. Conversely, the heart of flesh is pliable, a heart circumcised for faithfulness. The new heart is able to repent and return in obedience. But this can only come from a sovereign act of God. Left to herself, Israel is without hope.
Were it not for the promise of the New Covenant, the promise of forgiveness of sins, the promise of a new heart on which the Torah itself is written, all of our hopes would be in vain. But in Yeshua, there is a New Covenant, of faith. He is the Hope of Israel.
“But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My Torah within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jeremiah 31:33–34)
Shavuah Tov! Have a Good Week!
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First Fruits of Zion, PO Box 620099, Littleton, CO
80162-0099 USA
Telephone 303 933 2119, Toll-free 800 775 4807, Fax 303 933 0997
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