Deuteronomy 30:3, 5: “Then the Lord your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and . . . The Lord your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers.”
Observation: The Lord was continuing His final instructions to His chosen people before they crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land. Moses was soon to die, and the people who had wandered in the desert for forty years were standing on tiptoe, eager with anticipation.
Application: The very thought of God’s restoring me from captivity is a stunning reality—stunning first, that He is able to restore me, and second, that He will. I have been a captive in so many ways in my life, to unrighteous habits and thought-life, and to judgments and hurt that have closed my heart for a season.
The very thought that the Lord Jesus Christ will restore me to Himself is profoundly amazing. And make no mistake about it, it is to Him that I am being restored. He is the One who has made me, and His purpose was that I could fellowship with Him first in the garden, and now in all eternity as His beloved. This is staggering. His kindness to me is overwhelming. His restoration is complete, covering everything I have ever done to separate myself from Him.
My heart soars with joy over the knowledge of how high and how deep, how wide and how long is His redeeming love (see Eph. 5:18). My part in all this is to simply love Him above all else and all others, and to obey everything He tells me.
Prayer: Lord, about the part that’s mine to do—to love You and to obey You—oh, how much is wrapped up in those simple words. How many priorities still must be changed in my life to be completely at one with You. Yet I know You don’t require impossible things of me. So help me to quiet myself afresh today, to care about hearing Your voice above all the noise of life. Thank You for tantalizing glimpses of what You intend our relationship to be like. Thank You for using a bridal paradigm to express that deep sense of longing and unity that You died to win for me. Lord Jesus, I give myself to You today.