Bible Study Verses
Deuteronomy 23:12-14
Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that He will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you. (NIV)
Thoughts
OK, OK, stay with me on this one, I'm going somewhere with it! Think about it, if you walked into someone's hunting or fishing camp and there was garbage, trash, and filth-excrement--everywhere, would you want to sit and visit, to share a meal, to spend the night? I don't think so.
Well, there is going to be "excrement" in our lives whether we like it or not. Bad things, or sins, do happen. Sometimes we're the source of those bad things; sometimes they're from external sources. But we're told here to go out of the camp and get rid of them, to relieve ourselves, or better put, repent, of those bad things and bury them.
Why? So that God will not turn away from us, so that He will protect us, and so that He will deliver us from our enemies. If we're harboring sin in our lives, are we not keeping "excrement" in? Can God send His Spirit to dwell in us, and to bless us if we don't confess and repent of our sins, our spiritual equivalent of excrement?
Will God provide victory over the evil one if we are being disobedient to Him? Not the way I read His Word. So, let's go out of the camp and get some "relief". Let's confess, repent, and bury the excrement as God instructs us to, and then become the obedient, victorious children God wants us to be.
(Cliff S)
Action Point
If we're walking with God in obedience, He will convict us of sin so that we may recognize and confess it. When He does, it is imperative that we respond with confession and repentance. If we do, then He promises, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness," I John 1:9 (NIV).
Sportsmen's Tip of the Day
Every camp needs a "special" shovel. Some may need two.
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