“The story of Israel is a lesson in God’s ways. He established decrees for Jacob and established the law in Israel, and he commanded our forefathers to teach them to their children. For perpetuity God’s ways will be passed down from one generation to the next, even to those not yet born. In this way, every generation will set its hope in God and not forget his wonderful works but keep his commandments. By following his ways they will break the past bondage of their fickle fathers, who were a stubborn, rebellious generation and whose spirits strayed from the eternal God. They refused to love him with all their hearts. Take, for example, the sons of Ephraim. Though they were all equipped warriors, each with weapons, when the battle began they retreated and ran away in fear. They didn’t really believe the promises of God; they refused to trust him and move forward in faith. They forgot his wonderful works and the miracles of the past,”
If you look at the Bible, there’s a clear pattern that when the people of God love, follow and obey Him, when they live in submission and faith, they experience protection and blessing and they prosper greatly. That happens when they remain faithful to Him and instill His Word and His ways in their children and society. The opposite is also true, when they don’t live in faithfulness to the Lord, when they don’t live in accordance to His Word and remember their history with Him, when they don’t faithfully pass that history down to their children and make it part of the fabric of their society, calamity comes. Calamity comes not just because people are not walking with the Lord, but because of their lack of faith. What I want to underscore from this passage is something that the Lord has been emphasizing to me -- that we strengthen our faith and our resolve to believe in Him by recalling His faithfulness in the past. That is why history is so important. And that’s why gratitude is so important. It empowers and strengthens us to overcome fear and run into the battle with eyes of faith.
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