#DailyDevotion Remember What Jesus Has Done For You
Psalm 78 40How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert! 41Over and over they tempted God and grieved Israel’s Holy One.
The Israelites seem to fail God over and over again. The psalmist says they grieved Israel’s Holy One. The Holy One is our LORD Jesus Christ. The Gospels identify Him as such. They never seemed to get it right. I certainly can identify with the Israelites. It seems I have sins to ask forgiveness for all the time. My mind isn’t blank on Sunday mornings when it’s time to confess our sins. Perhaps and hopefully that is our difference. We recognize our sins and repent of them.
42They didn’t remember what His hand did when He freed them from those who oppressed them, 43by doing His signs in Egypt and His wonders in the land of Zoan. 44He turned their rivers into blood so they couldn’t drink from their streams. 45He sent among them swarms of flies that devoured them and frogs that destroyed them. 46He gave their crops to grasshoppers and what they worked for to locusts. 47He killed their vines with hail and their figs with frost. 48He let the hail strike their cattle and bolts of lightning strike their flocks.
The Israelites rebelled against the LORD in the wilderness over and over because they forgot, they didn’t remember what the LORD did for them in Egypt. They forgot the great plagues He put upon the Egyptians so they would let them go. They did not remember the almighty right arm of the LORD who delivered them from the land of misery.
Perhaps this is why Paul says, “I would have nothing before you but Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” He does not want us to forget with what power we were saved from sin and death. Jesus Christ crucified is the Gospel that saves us from temptation. It is the power of God to bring us from death to life. This message frees us from bondage to sin, the fear of death and from the power of the devil. We need to keep it forefront in our minds if we do not want to emulate and end up like the Israelites who rejected the LORD.
49He sent them His blazing anger, wrath, fury, and trouble — an escort of messengers of woe. 50He cleared a path for His anger and didn’t spare them from death. He let the plague take their lives. 51He struck down every firstborn in Egypt, the very first son of their vigor in the tents of Ham. 52But His own people He led out like sheep and guided them like a flock through the desert. 53He led them safely, without fear, while the sea covered their enemies.
The LORD commanded the Israelites in Deuteronomy to recall and teach their children and their children’s children this history of their salvation. Here the psalmist recalls the final plague of the firstborn in Egypt which was their deliverance and how the LORD led them out like a shepherd leads His sheep to green pastures.
Our LORD Jesus Christ, as the Firstborn, the Only-begotten of God the Father, was not spared from death. It was the Father’s will to crush Him and by His death make atonement for our sins. Jesus willingly became our Paschal Lamb. He led us through the baptismal waters and guides us by the Holy Spirit through this wilderness of a fallen world into the promised new heavens and new earth. It will be a sea of fire, not the Red Sea which will cover those who oppose our LORD. Let us always remember what Jesus did for us and pass this down to our children and our children’s children.
Almighty God and Father, with Your almighty hand You struck down Jesus, Your Only-begotten, to deliver us from sin, death and the power of the devil. Give us Your Holy Spirit so we may always remember this and live lives of thanksgiving. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.