Okay, guys. As you all know now, I spent a few days in Indiana last month at The Gospel Coalition Women’s Conference with some friends. It was the most amazing time of friendship, fellowship, food, and learning … I truly mean it when I say I think I came back a different woman than I was when I left. I don’t even know if I’ll have the eloquence to write down exactly everything I learned but I want to try and share what wisdom I gleaned while there.

The theme of the conference was “Listen and Live” and the entire time was spent going through various passages of the book of Deuteronomy. I was super excited when I saw that we’d be going through the book of Deuteronomy because we just spent part of the last year in my Precepts class at church going through Deuteronomy. I’d never really dug into an OT book in the way that Precepts class had us study it and I actually finished that study thinking Deuteronomy just might be my most favorite book of the Bible (forreals!).

So anyway, “Listen and Live.” It’s one of the themes of the book of Deuteronomy – to listen to God’s words and obey so that you will live. Moses (who wrote the book of Deuteronomy) is recounting to Israel their history and how the Lord carried them out of slavery in Egypt to bring them to the promised land. And just before they go in to take possession of their inheritance, Moses charges the people to “fear the Lord your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be long. Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them, that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly as the Lord, the God of your fathers has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey .. when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob … take care lest you forget the Lord, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. It is the Lord your God you shall fear. Him you shall serve and by his name you shall swear. You shall not go after other gods, the gods of the peoples who are around you – for the Lord your God in your midst is a jealous God – lest the anger of the Lord your God be kindled against you, and he destroy you from off the face of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 6:2, 3, 10, 12-15).

At first glance, it’s easy to read the book of Deuteronomy and walk away with a very black & white message that to love God is to obey God. After all, it’s the book of the Bible where you can find the 10 commandments! If you love God, obey Him! Keep His commands and obey, that’s how you love God. (Spoiler alert: that’s wrong.)

I feel like, growing up in a Korean-American church, that was the kind of message that was preached at me week after week – obey, obey, obey. Don’t break the rules, respect your elders, follow the 10 commandments, be a good little Christian. Despite my outer appearance as a youth, I actually didn’t come to be saved until after I graduated college so I can definitely tell you that you can “do all the right things” church-going people are supposed to do but it won’t create a regenerative heart in you.

The focus of Deuteronomy is actually not on the fact that the Israelites needed to heed God’s word and obey (although, indeed, that was part of their covenant and God did want them to do that). The point of Deuteronomy is actually this – “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.” (Deut. 6:5) and this – “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.” (Deut. 30:19-20). Israel was first called to LOVE the Lord, and then out of the love they had, to obey Him fully and completely. We’re called to do the same. Obeying God is not equivalent to loving God. Obeying God is the consequence of loving Him and finding Him to be more delightful than anything else in my life (including my husband, kids, reading YA, watching vapid reality TV, fried chicken, shopping, ice cream … you know, my favorite things.)

If you take a moment to read through the OT, you’ll know that Deuteronomy (and the law that comes with it – the 10 commandments) comes after God saves His people from slavery in Egypt. So following the law doesn’t make Israel God’s people, God gives them the law because they’re already His people. It’s the same for us – we’re not to obey God in order to be redeemed; He’s already redeemed us.

Isn’t that SO COOL? Even though it’s a truth I already knew, it was so refreshing to be REMINDED of it!

(*The bulk of what I summarized above was learned from Jackie Hill Perry’s talk on Day 1. Listen to it in its entirety for yourself if you have the time … it’s so good!)

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Here are some other MAJOR truths that I walked away refreshed with. In no particular order, but I do want to record them so I don’t forget and also for your edification if you like to read this sort of thing 🙂

• Part of the covenant that God makes with His people in the wilderness was that Israel was to have no other gods and to obey the one True God alone. They were to love Him fully and obey Him and in return, God would bless them and keep them as His own. But the thing is, Israel didn’t keep their part of the agreement – they were wayward people and constantly failed in loving & obeying God. I mean, even while Moses, their leader, was away receiving the 10 commandments for the people, Israel had already turned to idols and created a golden calf to worship for themselves! So then why didn’t the covenant just end completely and God smite His people off the face of the planet? It’s not that He didn’t want to, but the Israelites had a MEDIATOR (Moses) who interceded on their behalf to the Lord, begging Him to spare His people. And God listened to Moses and didn’t destroy the Israelites. We have a mediator, too, guys. The Israelites had Moses, who was still an imperfect human at best, but we have JESUS CHRIST as our Mediator, who sits at the RIGHT HAND of God and continually intercedes on our behalf – even now! *Mind. Blown. (There are all sorts of OT/NT parallels between Moses and Jesus, by the way. We learned about a lot of them in my church’s Precepts class and it was super cool to discover, too).
• There was a late-night Q&A done with John Piper on Friday night. He talked a lot about parenting and raising kids who love the Lord. By his own admission, a few of his own kids don’t walk with the Lord right now so take his advice with a grain of salt, but there was one thing he said that REALLY stuck with me and that was that we need to teach our kids to be better lovers not better law-keepers. This kind of goes with what I shared before, but law-keepers don’t get into heaven. It kind of put a lot of my own parenting into perspective as I know I can fall into the behavior modification trap, where I want my kids to obey just for the sake of obeying me. Or I tell them that they need to obey because that’s what God wants. But what does God really want? Ultimately, God wants us to delight in Him (and from that delight, obedience will overflow).
• If you’re not familiar with John Piper, one of his big “things” is Christian hedonism. Which is that God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. If you listen to Piper’s last message from the conference he focuses on that a lot. The Lord delights in finding Himself to be my delight. Loving Him is treasuring Him MORE than anything or anyone else; loving Him is finding Him supremely precious. I think of my three babies and how my heart aches with affection for them. Loving God is to ache with affection for God more than I ache for my kids. I don’t think I’ve EVER cried in a sermon, but I cried when Piper spoke of this. Do I love my God this way? How convicting and challenging!
• Okay so this last point isn’t really a truth, but more of a thank you. I actually had no idea what this conference was or that it would be happening. It was my sweet, precious husband (who follows TGC on Twitter) who found out about the conference and told me (not asked) that he really wanted to send me. This was last fall when I was still in the middle of recovering from my postpartum injury and definitely not thinking about being away from my kids in for a few days. Still, something in me wanted to say yes so I took a leap of faith and bought my tickets. I’M SO GLAD HE PUSHED ME TO GO! Not only because I got to have a few days with one of my best friends away from my kids but because I came back with a renewed FIRE (FIYYYAAHH!) for His Word and His gospel. So thank you, thank you, thank you, dear J! And if there are any husbands out there reading this blog, TGC hosts a women’s conference every other year so the next one will be in 2020. If you want to bless your wife (and in return, bless your family and yourself because you know … #happywifehappylife), encourage her to go! My husband took THREE days off of work and took all three of our kids to visit grandparents while I was gone. I know that was a huge sacrifice for him to do that so I could spend some quality time at the conference and I want to say that it was well worth it.