Deut 21-23 Anyone Seen My Ox

March 6th, Deuteronomy 21-23

       This is another section of various items God is calling attention to. I have to remember that God is setting up a new standard for his people. Ways he wants them to behave and interact with one another on top of the instruction he has for them about worship.
       Part of today's text includes a group of duties that we should have towards one another. Going the extra mile to help someone out even when it means going out of our own way, do a little extra work. One of the examples given is when you see your brother's sheep or ox go astray, you should go out of your way to take them back to your brother. If it doesn't live near you and you don't know who it belongs to then you should take it home. Take care of it, tend to it, and wait for the one who lost it to come looking for it.  But that you should not ignore it, walk on by and act like it's non of your business.
       That's a sense of community right there. Helping out when someone is in trouble is part of my business. In a fast-paced world these things are seen as an inconvenience. If a community is going to be a positive thing, it has to be filled with people adding to it, finding ways to say "how can I make things go better here?"Imagine a community where everyone said "how can I gain advantage over people and use them for my gain?"
       Beyond the 10 Commandments there are numerous things that "ought" to be. How can you or I look out for others today? Find little or big ways to serve and help. Help someone pick up something they dropped, grab a door when hands are full, offer to get something from the kitchen for my wife rather than waiting for her to go and asking her to get something for me(busted). The knee jerk reaction of jumping into service when we see it happen.

Thanks God for inviting us into this kind of life??