Our God is a God of promise. If anything has become clear during these past few months of walking through the Old Testament in our mid-week men’s studies, it is that God has chosen to interact with His creation on the basis of promise. And it’s not just an OT thing . . . Paul writes to the Galatians, “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise . . . Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise” (Gal. 3:29, 4:28). But as I’ve started into Deuteronomy in my reading plan, I’ve also noticed that there is a role for the child of God to play in appropriating the promise. What God gives, I need to take . . .

And now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the rules that I am teaching you, and do them, that you may live, and go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.   (Deuteronomy 4:1 ESV)

“Go in and take possession of the land that LORD is giving you” . . . that’s the phrase that caught my attention again this morning. It caught my attention yesterday morning as well (Deut. 1:8). And in these first five chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses has reminded the people numerous times that they are on the doorstep of the land God had promised to give to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to their offspring after them . . . and Moses has also commanded them numerous times to “take possession” of that land . . . or as the NKJV says “to go in and possess” . . . to enter and inherit.

God had determined to give them the land . . . theirs was to enter into it. God had promised them “great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant” (Deut. 6:10-11). But the refuge . . . and the refreshment . . . and the reward . . . they’d never know any of it unless they went into possess what God had promised. God had made a covenant to give . . . the people needed to make a concerted effort to take.

The promise of forgiveness of sins is of no value unless it is received by faith. God has said that, in Christ, we are new creations — the old having passed away, the new having come (2Cor. 5:17) . . . but in order to know that new-ness, we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, feed on the word of Christ, and be “transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Rom. 12:2).

God’s covenant to conform His children into the image of His Blessed Son (Rom. 8:28) becomes a reality only as we determine, as much as lies within our feeble beings, to “walk by the Spirit . . . be led by the Spirit . . . live by the Spirit” so that we might bear “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:16-25). God desires to give us a peace that passes understanding . . . our is to make known to the Lord every need with “prayer and supplication with thanksgiving” (Php. 4:6-7). And the list goes on . . .

Go in . . . take possession of the land that the LORD is giving you . . .

Ours, in a sense, is a give and take relationship with the LORD. He promises to give . . . the child of God determines, by His grace, to take . . . to appropriate . . . to possess.

And then, mine is to give as well. To give Him all praise . . . to give Him all honor . . . to give Him all glory . . . amen?