Fear Daily Devotional - Feb 20

February 20

Deuteronomy 31:12
12: Gather the people together, men and women and little ones, and the stranger who is within your gates, that they may hear and that they may learn to fear the LORD your God and carefully observe all the words of this law.

Comment:
Just before this verse, Moses was reminding the people about a event recorded  in Deuteronomy (Deut. 16:16) where the Lord appointed a special time called the Feast of Tabernacles.  This is a time at the end of every seven years, called the year of release, when God would choose a place for all Israel to come together to read the law.  

Thus all the people would gather together, and as you can imagine, there might be “strangers” or non-Jewish people in the crowd who would also hear the reading.  

Makes me think about our lives…do we gather only in the church full of believers to hear the word?  Do we hesitate to “speak” about the Lord when “strangers” are in “within our gates” or hearing range?  Maybe we keep quiet because we don’t want to offend anyone, which seems admirable.  But when reading these verses, perhaps we are missing the opportunities that Moses was commanding! 

By bringing people together, and sharing the “words of this law” perhaps the “strangers” among us will also learn to fear the Lord our God!

Lord,  please remind me to be bold when people are gathered together .  Don’t allow me to miss an opportunity to allow people “hear that they may learn to fear the Lord our God"! Amen.