Forever Home in the Eternal Family of God

A Daily Devotional by Kenton Cheek

13 March 2024

Reading From Deuteronomy 8-10

“You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’ But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your ancestors, as it is today.

If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.”

–Deuteronomy 8:17-20

It fascinates me that the ability to produce wealth is a confirmation of the covenant between God and His people and that this ability comes from God. Verse seventeen speaks against having pride in one’s wealth. This guidance means that not only should we thank God for blessing us, but also not to brag about what we have.

Wealth means different things and is measured in different ways to different people in different contexts. In the days of the patriarchs, it might have meant plenty of flocks and herds and tents. By this time in Israel’s history, the land of Canaan with its bountiful crops and many houses and cities was flowing with milk and honey; abundant with wealth. For most of human history, a large family was a blessing and a sign of prosperity.

My Great, Great Grandparents and their sons with their families had moved from Missouri to Eastern Oregon in 1913. They traveled by steam train to the Dalles on the Columbia River and then by covered wagons the last three hundred miles. Their farms back home had been lush and in the fertile Missouri soil they had been able to grow most anything they had need of, but they dreamed of a better life out west.

Lured by the federal government’s provisions found in the Homestead Act of a free allotment of one hundred and sixty acres to every household that would settle it, the Cheek family had developed a strategy. If each of the six Cheek sons and their parents had one hundred sixty acres, that would make a cattle empire of one thousand one hundred twenty acres. What they found in Oregon was not the verdant Willamette Valley and deep, green forests of the Coast and Cascade Ranges, but the desolate High Desert with tough sagebrush jabbing out of the hard crust and only the occasional wind sculpted juniper tree. The fruitful orchards and productive gardens of Missouri were a distant memory, seventeen hundred miles away.

Fresh fruit and vegetables were hard to come by in Eastern Oregon at that time. On the rare occasion that my Great, Great Grandmother was fortunate enough to buy an apple from the general store (a seventy two miles round trip over bad roads from the homesteads), she would carry the precious cargo in her apron pocket. As she would go about her daily chores on the ranch, she would remember the apple in her pocket, hold it up to her face and smell it. She knew that it would be a long time until she had another apple, so she only allowed herself to enjoy its aroma, but would not bite. This would go on for days until she finally indulged. Imagine a life where an apple was a prized possession; a measure of wealth.

God is our Jehovah Jireh; our Provider. He is a good Father who provides for His own children. What kind of father would be if He didn’t want good things for His kids? As I said before, wealth means different things in different contexts. For my Great, Great Grandmother it was an apple; for a family in Africa, it might be another chicken that means having more than enough to eat; for a young couple in America it might be a tax refund that pays off a student loan and liberates them from that servitude; for an elder it might be regular visits from caring friends and family. Whatever it may be, God wants increase and abundance for His people and for them to share those blessings with others in need. Wealth is not to be hoarded; it is to be used to provide for the needs of our families and to further the Kingdom of God. We are meant to share the abundance.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. –Matthew 6:19-21

As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for themselves as a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is truly life. –I Timothy 6:17-19

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 4:19