It's God's Grace, Stupid! - Deuteronomy 9:5-6

"You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people."

First, let me say that I'm not calling you (the reader) stupid. So please don't be offended by the title.

Remember, the basic premise of these Bible meditations is that I'm talking to myself--meditating.

So, yes, I guess I'm calling myself stupid. But sometimes I have to be harsh with myself because, like the ancient Israelites, I am a "stiff-necked" person. (Stiff-necked means willful.)

But if anything I say to myself you find you can apply to your life also, then that is my hope and my prayer.

"It's God's Grace, Stupid" states, more colloquially of course, what Moses was reminding the Israelites as they were about to experience great success in conquering and possessing the land of Canaan, the promised land. In fact, I like to think that these are the words Moses muttered under his breath to the rebellious and disobedient Israelites in this warning about self-righteousness!

So God would give Israel possession of the promised land not because of the righteousness and integrity of the Israelites, for they were anything but righteous.

Moses could have just as easily said, "You are going to take possession of the land in spite of your unrighteousness, your self-righteousness, your willfulness."

Now you may think that now I'm being harsh on the Israelites. I probably am, but only because they are me--I am them.

I am exactly like them! I have received God's unmerited favor and blessing and then sometimes I get to thinking I must really be somebody with God. God must think I'm really special because I'm such a righteous guy.

Even if I am special to God (and I hope that I am), all my "specialness" couldn't warrant His favor. Being a nice guy doesn't make God show grace and mercy to me.

God does it because He promised He would! God promised He would win back this world that had been usurped by Satan: "I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15).

God's chosen people, the Israelites, were part of God's plan. Conquering the land of Canaan, the promised land, was part of God's plan.

But God's redemptive plan was ultimately fulfilled in the coming of His Son, Jesus, as a human being: "For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned" (John 3:17-18).

Casting Crowns, a contemporary Christian band, recorded a song titled, Who Am I? that explains this much more poetically, eloquently, and profoundly than I have:

          Who am I, that the Lord of all the earth
          Would care to know my name, would care to feel my hurt?
          Who am I, that the Bright and Morning Star 
          Would choose to light the way for my ever wandering heart?
          Not because of who I am but because of what You've done.
          Not because of what I've done but because of who You are.

But if you happen to be a bit willful and self-righteous like me, then it doesn't hurt to remind yourself every so often: "It's God's Grace, Stupid!"