Volume 3, Issue 6

March 11, 2025

“Conviction is from God; shame is from the enemy.” 

 

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard this statement or a variation of it. And I’m sure I bought into it when I first heard it as so often happens with pithy statements that sound true.

 

The sentiment behind the saying is, no doubt, coming from a good place, First name / friend. We certainly don’t want people, especially believers, to wallow in shame and live there for an extended period of time. And it is true that the enemy can use shame to make us impotent for the cause of Christ. 

 

But two things can be true at the same time: The enemy can use shame to keep us stuck and God can use shame to draw us closer to Himself.

 

Over and over again in Scripture, I have found that God uses shame to get His people’s attention. In the final chapters of the book of Job, God in essence tells Job, “Shame on you for questioning Me.” And the result is that Job sees where he has sinned, repents, and corrects his path.

 

As we are sitting in the book of Micah, one of the threats God makes is that He will “uncover their nakedness.” This is a way of saying that He will shame them since walking around naked was shameful. 

 

When God rebukes Jonah for pouting over the salvation of the city of Nineveh, He shames him for his behavior. 

 

When Nathan visits King David after he has murdered Uriah… well, you get the picture.

 

I recently heard a song that claimed “there is no room for shame in [God’s] open arms.” Unfortunately, this makes it seem like shame is not useful, that it is a sin to feel ashamed. But what if that shame is the very thing we need to drive us to those open arms?

 

While we should not wallow in our shame, we should see it as a tool that will lead us to a closer walk with the Lord.

 

As you dive into the book of Deuteronomy this week, you will find that much of it is repetition of what you have just read in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. But there’s a good reason.

 

At the time of the writing of the book of Deuteronomy, the Israelites had been wandering in the wilderness for close to forty years. Moses had already been told he would not be entering the Promised Land with his people, and most of the generation that refused to go in when the spies returned from their mission had passed away.

 

The book of Deuteronomy was written to the new generation of Israelites that would be crossing the Jordan, entering the land, and claiming it as their own. Moses wanted to remind them of their history since all they had really ever known was the wilderness (remember that only those who were 20 years old and younger at the time of the spies’ mission would be entering).

 

Moses goes to great lengths to remind them who they are, Whom they serve, and how they should live. 

 

So as you read through the familiar accounts, try to see them through this lens instead of their familiarity causing you to skim. An interesting exercise would be to take one of those familiar accounts and read the original alongside the account in Deuteronomy, noticing the similarities and the differences to showcase Moses’ intent.

 

I would love to hear what you discover, First name / friend!

Because this book of prophecy is tied to God's covenant, it is a good idea to rehearse the meaning of the word and explain its implications. A covenant is made between two or more parties indicating a promise to fulfill or perform certain actions. Another word for covenant is testament. This would make the divisions in our Bible the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.

 

A covenant might be conditional or unconditional, in other words, in a conditional covenant, one party will only keep his promise if the other person does her part. Whereas an unconditional covenant means that one party is bound to fulfill his promise no matter what the other party does. While God's covenant to make Abraham a great nation was unconditional, He often added conditions for how it would play out with the nation of Israel.

 

The New Covenant is a bit different because the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gives us a desire to be faithful, which is a perk the Israelites under the Old Covenant didn't have. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit did indwell some people, but He could also leave them (i.e. King Saul). Christ is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant.

 

When God made a covenant with Abraham (Abram at the time), the ceremony is a little strange to our western thinking. Abram had just rescued Lot and made enemies of the surrounding nations. God begins chapter 15 by reminding Abram that God is his protector, so he doesn't need to fear. Then God asks Abram to bring specific animals, cut them in half and lay them with a path between the pieces. This was the way a covenant was made in Abram's culture. This was not foreign to him.

 

What was strange, even for Abram, was that he did not participate in the covenant. He was asleep! The covenant didn't need Abram's participation because God would fulfill it no matter what Abram did. In fact, Abraham repeatedly put God's plan in jeopardy, but God protected it.

 

The fire pot and flaming torch that passed down the path between the pieces of the animals would have been reassuring to the Israelites, Moses' audience, because they had been wandering in the wilderness following a pillar of fire/cloud. It always amazes me how God maintains the same imagery throughout the Scriptures no matter how much time has passed.

There are covenants beyond the book of Genesis. Here is a list, but keep in mind that not all scholars agree on all of the covenants, whether they are conditional or unconditional, whether they have all been fulfilled or not, etc.

To read a brief explanation of these covenants, click the button below.

One of the words that has come up again and again in the book of Micah is remnant. This is a word tied very closely to God's covenant, and therefore, it shows up repeatedly through many books of prophecy in Scripture. 

 

Every time disaster is prophesied for the nation of Israel, there is hope in the remnant, those who will survive the judgment and return to the land God promised Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to rebuild and restore God's people. This idea of a remnant provides hope for the Israelites as they are tossed to and fro as a result of their sin. And the remnant is mentioned in Revelation, too.

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