Blessed are you, Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the LORD? He is your shield and helper and your glorious sword. Your enemies will cower before you, and you will tread on their heights. – Deuteronomy 33:29

Today's Scripture Reading (February 3, 2022): Deuteronomy 33

There are people, maybe even you, who live with the benefit of privilege. Perhaps we all have privilege in some area of our lives, that area that gives us a pass that maybe other people don't get. Privilege can be as simple as being known in your neighborhood so that you are given a pass on things that someone else might not get. And there is nothing wrong with having privilege. The problem comes with what you do with it.

The truth is that many people who are born with privilege simply choose to waste it. We see them on the society page of our magazines and entertainment shows. These people are given everything they need to succeed and use that advantage to advance their fame instead of using it for a more productive purpose. They are handed an education and choose to party instead. And in the process, they come to think that the life they live is ordinary, and these things of privilege are things that are owed to them. Privilege becomes a basic human right instead of the extraordinary blessing it really is.

Moses blesses the tribes, but then, to sum it all up, he pronounces a blessing over the nation as a whole. He reminds them that they are a nation blessed by God, special among all of the countries. They were a nation that God saved. The Apostle Paul would later write, "What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us" (Romans 3:31)? Moses reminds Israel that with God on their side, their enemies would cower in front of them, and they would be the ones who would "tread on their heights."

Israel was privileged, but what was important was what they would decide to do with the privilege. Would they horde the blessing for themselves, or would they choose to use the b to make the world a better place? Would they remember the commission that God had given to their forefather Abraham when he God told him that;

I will make you into a great nation,
    and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
    and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
    and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
    will be blessed through you (Genesis 12:2-3).

According to God, all of the people of the world would be blessed by Israel, the great nation that had come from the descendants of Abraham, if that was what Israel decided to do with the blessing that they had been given.

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Deuteronomy 34