Holy God with a Heart of Love [Deuteronomy 23]

 ⁵"Nevertheless, the LORD your God was not willing to listen to Balaam, but the LORD your God turned the curse into a blessing for you because the LORD your God loves you.

Tucked in the midst of sundry laws is this very sweet statement.  God turned a curse to blessing because He loves you.  Don't forget His heart of love as you read Deuteronomy! 

The second thing that struck me about our God is that He gives these laws because He is holy.  Verse 14  says, "Since the LORD your God walks in the midst of your camp to deliver you and to defeat your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy; and He must not see anything indecent among you or He will turn away from you."

Pull back for a moment from the intensity of the specific directions God is giving His people to see the bigger picture.  After wondering around for forty years they are about to enter the place God has promised that they would live with Him in their midst.  They are about to completely enter that marriage, that covenant relationship.  They have been in a long engagement, so to speak, and now they are about to enter a place where they will settle down and live with God.  If you are married think back to those months right before the wedding when you talked about all the different aspects of what your life together would be like (hopefully).  You established some ground rules to keep from floundering - to give some direction about how the relationship would flow.  You did it because of love and You did it because of holiness.  God Himself put that in your hearts.  He modeled it beautifully with His chosen people.

We praise You God that You love us so much that You desire to be in our midst.  We praise You for your requirement of holiness because You are a holy God.  Thank You for Jesus who satisfied the need for holiness in Your presence by justifying

us (declaring us righteous) through His death and resurrection.  Jesus

lovingly paid for my sin so that I might have Holy God live in me.  Amazing!