Deuteronomy 14 - 16 (16th Mar) - Ezra

Deuteronomy 14

Clean and unclean food. I thank God that now all food that goes into our mouth is clean, because we say grace. Anyway, I would like to extract out something about this passage. As most of us know, we feed upon the word of God; that is clean food. Feeding ourselves with unwholesomeness from the material world; that is unclean food.
3 Do not eat any detestable thing.

Tithes. Do we give them regularly? How many of us really give regularly?
Some questions are; give tenth of our earnings; is it only our wagers? What about if we get ang bao during CNY?
Answer: It is still an earning…

22 Be sure to set aside a tenth of all that your fields produce each year. 23 Eat the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks in the presence of the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name, so that you may learn to revere the LORD your God always.

You know, in New Zealand, 1 cow can cost you a house. A firstborn of the herds / flocks can cost about the price of 2 houses and a Mercedes-Benz.
During those times, sacrificing the firstborn of the herds / flocks is really a big thing. Imagine burning your most expensive purchased product that you’ve saved up money for. E.g. Alvin’s Mazda 3 1.6 or James’s Hyundai Sonata.

So in the same way, we should not just limit our tithes to just 10%, but we should be willing to give above that 10%.
God will bless you with greater things when you give with a grateful heart.

Deuteronomy 15

Here it shows us that, wherever we are; may it be school, work or army, how much we get per month for allowances or wagers we are all not poor.
4 However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you,
5 if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today.
6 For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you.
If you read carefully in the passage above; in the present, the land that God has given us is our ministry, not just in church, but our schools, offices and army camp. We are all pastors in wherever God has placed us in; schools, offices or army camp.

As we read on, it also shows us that those of us that holds a certain position in school, work or SAF; supervisor, manager, teacher, prefect, student counselor, officer or sergeant; we have to remember that we are ministers for the Lord and so, we also have to be Christ like at school, work or in army camp. In this way, God will bless us and enlarge our territories.
18 Do not consider it a hardship to set your servant free, because his service to you these six years has been worth twice as much as that of a hired hand. And the LORD your God will bless you in everything you do.
The passage above shows us that, as people with higher positions in school, work or army, the Lord will bless greatly when we chose to do things His ways. Not just for people with a supervisory or leader position, but also the workers. As an employee, student or solider, we also must be a blessing to our bosses or superior above us and pray that the Lord will bless them too.
Deuteronomy 16

Sacrifice and Rejoice unto the Lord. As we go on in our daily lives, studying, working, training, resting and ministering; we sometimes miss the point of why must we sacrifice the things we love most that draws us or distract us from drawing nearer and deeper I the Lord. Some can be hobbies, friends, girlfriend, boyfriend, family, sleeping, playing, computer games, etc… these are the yeast in some of our lives which distract us.
We sacrifice these things so that we avail ourselves to let God work in us and grow in us.
2 Sacrifice as the Passover to the LORD your God an animal from your flock or herd at the place the LORD will choose as a dwelling for his Name.
3 Do not eat it with bread made with yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, because you left Egypt in haste….

Many of us sometimes enjoy the blessings the Lord has blessed us with, and forget to thank the Lord and left up praises and rejoicing up to Him. For some, grumble to much and pondering upon all the unpleasant situation in life until giving thanks to God for those situations is so difficult to articulate.
10 Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you.

11 And rejoice before the LORD your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name….

13 Celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress.

14 Be joyful at your Feast….

As the passages has projected it for us to see. In those days, this is how much the really give glory to God and honor Him.