Isaiah 38:17 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

The term “I got your back.” has been around a long time. It is meant to be comforting, supportive, protective. In reality it only goes into effect if you are challenged and has no value it the one behind you is weaker than your opponent. It also requires you to be “the front man” and put yourself at risk.

I love it when I find a word of God that flips conventional wisdom or the ways of the world and demonstrates His character in doing just the opposite. As a father I would place myself between my child and danger. I would place my child at my back and face the enemy. That is a world view.

In God’s eyes our sins are the danger, we are our own worst enemy. Sin is the thing that keeps us separated from God. So God takes our sin and places it behind Him and all we can see is our loving and protective Father. If we want to get to our sins, we have to go through Him.

Colossians 2:13-14

And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses; Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;

That cross was at His back. Do you want you sin? No problem, all you have to do is go thru Christ to have them. Maybe if we had to look at what Christ had to suffer to save us from our sins we wouldn’t be so anxious to have sin in our lives.

Or we could just bask in the love of the Father who loves us and try not to sneak around behind His back.

Deuteronomy 17:19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

My oldest daughter loves the movie “The Princess Bride”. She has watched in over and over and over again. She recites the actors lines as or just before the delivered lines in the movie. It is impressive. But it isn’t a matter of determined memorization.

The way the brain works is in making impressions within the memory cortex which deepen with every reoccurrence. Dr. Keith Lamb put it like this, “Repetition is the price of knowledge.” The repetitive act of watching the movie multiple times deepened the impressions within her brain.

The bible is a rather large book. I’ve read it from cover to cover twice. I have not read it enough in order to recite it word for word. I have read some parts of it more than others. Romans chapter 8 has been revisited many times. Why? Because I love the words I found there.

The encouragement in Deuteronomy 17:19 is “to keep all the words”. If we choose only to read those things we love about the bible, then it is like a picky eater whose health declines because they do not get all the vitamins and minerals contained within those things pushed aside.

Deuteronomy 29:9 Keep therefore the words of this covenant, and do them, that ye may prosper in all that ye do.

They are given to us for our own good. How is you bible diet?