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After the Lord your God has driven them out before you, do not say to yourself, \u201cThe Lord has brought me here to take possession of this land because of my righteousness\u201d (Deuteronomy 9:4).

Here is another chapter in which Moses worries about Israel\u2019s propensity to abandon God. Much of the chapter is taken up by his recapping the events surrounding the fiasco of the Golden Calf. Moses was up on the mountain for 40 days with God. Israel became impatient and decided that Moses was dead, and God had vanished. So, they insisted that Aaron make them a god they could see, which meant, control.

God, being very angry with them, wanted to destroy every last one of them. As Moses tells the story, he spent the next 40 days facedown on the rocky mountain without food or drink interceding for Israel. He appealed not to Israel\u2019s goodness or potential, but to God\u2019s reputation. If God gave up on Israel, the nations would laugh at him saying, \u201cHe couldn\u2019t do it! Israel\u2019s God was not strong enough to give his people Canaan, so they all had to die in the wilderness.\u201d

Moses goes to great trouble to remind Israel of their failure and rebellion. What he really wants is that they remember how quickly they fell into sinfulness. This, of course, is hardly politically correct to speak about today. Yet, I will. We too, do well to remember how easily we fall into sinful behaviour. Christians, of all people who dwell on this earth, ought to be comfortable talking about sin. Why? Because we are the people who live by the grace of God in Christ Jesus. We believe that all physical and spiritual things that we have are ours by God\u2019s grace alone.

That is what Moses wanted Israel to remember. The land of promise was God\u2019s gift to them. We do well to remember that too.

There was a time when Christian Reformed folks, that is the denomination Immanuel is part of, believed that we were basically the only ones who were getting into heaven. We may scoff at such an idea today, but our history books document that we once thought that way. There is a deep pride at work in such ideas. We do well to still acknowledge that today and wonder what other forms of spiritual pride have crept into our hearts.

One way to counteract this pride is to listen to others. Listening that includes the belief that we can learn something from someone else, even someone that we disagree with. Such humility is difficult to find today. It would be wonderful if Christians became known for it.

Let\u2019s also talk about our physical possessions. Many of us have worked hard for them. We have laboured and toiled and sometimes schemed late into the night to get ahead. Now we are ahead. Looking back at all our hard work, we easily begin to think that we deserve all this. Why not, we worked for it?

When we hold our possessions, whether physically or virtually, do we hold them tightly with the words \u2018mine, all mine, my precious?\u201d Or do we hold them lightly with the question, \u201cWhat would God have me do with these things?\u201d

When David confessed his sin before God, he included this, \u201cThe greatest sacrifice you want is a broken spirit. God, you will gladly accept a heart that is broken because of sadness over sin\u201d (Psalm 51:17). We do well to regularly echo this prayer and remember the warnings of Moses.