"Irreplaceable" February 16 Readings: Deuteronomy 30-34, Psalm 90

  

Reading the Bible Chronologically in 2024

This year, instead of reading from Genesis to Revelation, we will read the Bible as the story flows, as it happened and was written. There are several plans out there and I have worked to combine them into a plan that lets the Bible tell its own story "as it happened." Remember, the Bible is inspired, but not in the order the books appear in our Bibles.  The Old Testament is approximately 3/4 of the Bible, but we will give more emphasis to the New Testament, spending half the year in the Old Testament and half in the New. 

Bible Readings: Deuteronomy 30-34, Psalm 90

Background:  

Today's reading is about transitions. Moses has led Israel from the moment God sent him from the Burning Bush and now it is his time to die. Joshua has been beside him for 40 years and it is his time to take over. This is going to be tough, but God guides his people through it.

We also have our first psalm, Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses. 

Daily Devotional: Irreplaceable?

Back in 2005, I did not understand why God was moving me from the church I thought I would retire from across the state of Iowa to Sioux City. It all became clear at a meeting a few days after I resigned when I was trying to help some of the leaders of the church make some plans for the future and one of them said,

Now that you are leaving, Dave, this church will fall apart. 

That sounds like a compliment, but it was an indictment. A church that rests on me is no church at all. "The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord." God was moving me, I understood, so that people might learn to lean on him and not on me.

It is a normal thing for people to trust their leaders if those leaders are honorable, but that becomes a temptation when those people begin to trust IN their leaders, to transpose their faith in God to faith in the people who were supposed to lead them to God. When that happens, a leadership transition is traumatic. When God is in control, one leader gives way to another. There is only one person whose presence is indispensable to the life of a church and that is the one who shed his blood to purchase that church and to give it life.

"Moses my servant is dead." That's how the book of Joshua begins, but then God begins to work through Joshua and a new chapter in Israel's history is written.

Good leadership is crucial, but let us never forget that the foundation of the church is Christ and that his presence is the only one that must never change.

Thank you, Lord, for people who have led me and guided me. But I also thank you that you make everything new and that you raise up a Joshua when Moses fades away. 

Consider God's Word:

Do you have a healthy respect for the leaders of your church?
Do you also remember that it is not your leaders, but your Savior, who is the foundation?