Law Courts [Deut 17:8-13]
8 If cases come before your courts that are too difficult for you to judge—whether bloodshed, lawsuits or assaults—take them to the place the LORD your God will choose. 9 Go to the priests, who are Levites, and to the judge who is in office at that time. Inquire of them and they will give you the verdict. 10 You must act according to the decisions they give you at the place the LORD will choose. Be careful to do everything they direct you to do. 11 Act according to the law they teach you and the decisions they give you. Do not turn aside from what they tell you, to the right or to the left. 12 The man who shows contempt for the judge or for the priest who stands ministering there to the LORD your God must be put to death. You must purge the evil from Israel. 13 All the people will hear and be afraid, and will not be contemptuous again.

Read this passage last night and while I was reading it, there are 3 things which can be pointed out. (We don’t possess all wisdom. There must be actions accompanied. Obedience is essential.)

About the first point where we don’t have all wisdom, it is evident from verses 8-9. Notice that there are many things and cases which are beyond our wisdom to make decisions? So, what are we supposed to do when we meet an obstacle in our daily lives and do not know what step to take next? Have we forgotten that God is Almighty, possess all wisdom, understanding and knowledge?

Many times, we turn to our closer friends, turn to teachers and who not, but we fail to inquire of God. God has already a plan lay out before we were all born! He is just waiting for us to ask and seek Him. You may ask me, “So how can I know of the plan He has for me?”

Obviously, it is to pray to Him! There are many ways where you can find out His plan in addition to praying. Open your eyes and see what He has done for you in the past. Where has He been leading you too? To be more efficient in this, you must be accountable to your spiritual overseers. There is a reason as to why there are spiritual leaders in your life. They are there to help us see the things we can’t see.

Secondly, there must be actions accompanying the aftermath of the query. This is reflected in verses 10-11. We cannot afford to stop short at the first step of just identifying that we are in need. A problem is not solved by being able to identify it. It is solved when we act upon it with the wisdom that God has granted us and the visions He has shown us. The word that God has spoken to us must not be just mere words! It must be carried out in accordance! No compromise must be allowed. A compromise is cutting off some slack in what God has said, which is a direct disobedience shown to God. Then why did you inquire of God in the very first place? We need to see the importance of affirming and respecting God’s word. We need to not only listen, but do what He says. We can choose to turn a deaf ear and forget what He says. We can turn away and forget the voice of God. If we do this repeatedly, we will lose the unique sound and tone of His voice. This is when spiritual deafness and death creeps in. How scary is it for one to lose this sense of hearing of a beautiful voice but the One who is our Savior, Redeemer, Creator, Father!

Moving on to the last point of being obedient, this can be explicitly seen in verses 11-12. If we do not believe in God’s plan, then why are we praying to Him? Why do we ask Him for His opinions? Definitely we ask because we acknowledge that there is a far more Supreme Being, which is God Himself. So with trust, comes obedience.

Remember the times where you asked God for a direction and yet doubted? It is common to Man as we are creatures with a very short memory span, you might argue. Come on, we can remember things we learnt in the kindergarten, so that is not an excuse. The reason why we don’t put our COMPLETE trust in Him is because we trust in ourselves more. Do we pray for Him to be magnified while we are to be diminished?

When we reach the stage where we fail to execute EVERYTHING that God has commanded us to do, we have reached the stage where we are utterly blinded by our strengths, especially when we fail to look beyond our abilities. Have we forgotten where our strength comes from? It comes from the Lord!

With obedience comes faith; with faith comes spiritual renewal and awakening.

Hence I conclude that we ought to take a look at our individual lives everyday. See and listen intently to what God wants to do in your life. Give all you have to Him and He will embrace you with His riches. In Christ, we have victory!

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.
Ps119:105