Now Choose Life
For Meditation (Corey Widmer)
This Sunday we come to the dramatic conclusion of Deuteronomy—and of the Torah itself. After forty years of wandering, God’s people stand on the edge of the Promised Land. Through Moses, God renews His covenant with them and places before them a decisive choice: the way of life and blessing or the way of death and curse. The choice is stark—but it is not harsh. God’s commands are not distant or impossible. The word is near, the life God offers is accessible, and His grace has already gone before. Before God ever commands, He has already saved, chosen, and blessed.
In these final chapters, Moses reminds Israel that real life—true flourishing—comes only from walking in God’s ways. Yet he also knows their weakness. He foresees their failure and exile, but he also speaks of a deeper promise: that one day God will circumcise their hearts so they can love Him fully and live. This promise points forward to Jesus, who fulfills the law and gives us new hearts through the Holy Spirit.
Our culture offers endless versions of “the good life”—comfort, success, self-fulfillment. But Moses insists that there is really only one path that leads to life, because God Himself is our life. To choose God’s way is not to limit our joy, but to discover it. As we gather this Sunday, we’ll be invited once again to receive God’s gift of life, to choose His way of love and obedience, and to trust His promise to renew our hearts by His Spirit.
Reflection and Discussion Questions
Think of the “two ways” Moses describes—life or death, blessing or curse. What are some small, daily choices that move you toward life? What choices tend to pull you away from it?
How does understanding God’s commands as gifts—rather than burdens—change the way you think about obedience?
Deuteronomy 30:6 promises that God will “circumcise your hearts.” How have you experienced God changing your heart over time?
Where do you sense that God might be calling you right now to “choose life”—to align your habits, relationships, or attention with his ways?
During our November social media fast, how have you noticed God using silence, stillness, or less screen time to draw your attention back to what truly gives life?
Deuteronomy 30:11–20
Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Read along with us this fall! Download our Deuteronomy Reading Guide here.