Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Old Testament, Deuteronomy 30:15-20               

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

God gives us choices all through our lives. But we miss His emphasis on choosing if we misread the clear testimony of Scripture. Choices regarding spiritual life can only be made by those who already belong to Him. In other words, He gives us life SO THAT we can choose Him, His ways, and His destination for us. In our Old Testament reading this week we find that Moses has presented the covenant again to the people. But just as the Law was not given to make Israel His people, so “choosing life” (30:19), does not make Israel His people, it confirms them as His people.

The testimony of the Bible since the earliest chapters of Genesis is that mankind, when he was able to actually choose in freedom for or against God, made that free choice. And he blew it. And we are with him. Born in that rebellion. Much of the Christian Church today is taught that God’s greatest gift is free will and that exercising that choice in favor of God gives us new birth. But that is not the testimony of the Scripture for it tells us that we, you and I, and indeed all of humanity following the free choice of our first parents have relinquished that original freedom. No, we are born spiritually dead (cf. Ephesians 2:1), and dead men and women CANNOT choose. Now we, as His children, rest on the glorious declaration of Jesus that “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16a). It’s not an idea that sits well with many, especially in America where our freedom of choice defines us. But not here.

Read our passage for the week. In fact go back and read all of chapter 30 and realize again, or for the first time that the call to repentance and faith, and to follow all the ways of the LORD, is a call to those who are already His. “Choose life” as Moses directs. We can because we already belong to the LORD. For “he is your life” (30:20). He is. Not, “He will be.”

The choice was His. He has chosen us. That makes us free to choose life every day He gives us breath. Choose life!