“But the land, whither ye go to possess it,
is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: A land which the LORD thy God careth for: the eyes of the LORD thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year” (Deut. 11:11, 12).
This is the land of promise: to us it means Christ. If you are in this land, spiritually, wherever you may live and whatever your burdens maybe, God’s eyes will be upon you from the beginning of the year to the end of it. His grace, mercy and peace will be showered abundantly upon you and you will be given the strength you need to overcome all your trials. If you are a child of God you must claim His promises by faith, otherwise, they will remain mere words.
The land of Canaan did not require any watering or artificial irrigation. It was a land that drank the water of the rain of heaven (verse 11). When the children of Israel entered the land it was very fertile from one end to the other. The Lord Jesus Christ is an antitype of that land. In Him, we have all sufficiency and we have no need to get troubled or anxious about anything because He supplies all our needs provided we know how to obey Him and bring all our needs to Him in prayer.
God had told the children of Israel very clearly, again and again, that He would bless them if they obeyed His commandments, and punish them if they went after other gods (vs. 27, 28 and ch. 6:13, 14). The people knew that God wanted them to love Him with all their hearts, and with all their souls and with all their might; yet we see that again and again, they went after strange gods either openly or secretly. Therefore, although they were actually in the promised land, they were not able to enjoy its fullness.
For us, this means that unless we honour our Lord whole-heartedly, and keep our hearts free from strange gods, we will not be able to understand and enjoy the fullness of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we love any person or anything more than the Lord Jesus Christ, that person or thing becomes a strange god to us, and consequently, we lose our joy and peace. Some may love their houses and their properties more than the Lord and neglect their times for devotion, prayer, worship and service for the Lord. Others spend hours looking after their motor cars, cleaning and admiring them. Yet others worship their friends and relations and have so much desire to be popular and with them that they will willingly cut short or cancel their times of prayer and attending of special meetings, and even Sunday worship. Many others have worldly friendships or even defiling friendships by which they fall into sin. Love of money may become a strange god too. Some people are not satisfied with what they have and wish to increase their income by some means, and then they have no time for private prayer or even family prayer and they completely neglect the House of God. Some wives keep gold and silver as their strange gods. For some people, their radios (nowadays TV) are their strange gods, and thus lose even their desire for Bible reading and prayer and Sunday worship. They say that they get all they need through these programmes but ultimately they find themselves spiritually barren. Such strange gods are responsible for all your spiritual loss including the loss of our peace and joy. God’s Word says that if you will keep your hearts and homes free from strange gods, then His eyes will be upon you (Deut. 11:12). In order to be sure that we begin the New Year without any strange gods in our hearts, we have to spend much time examining our hearts. Thus we trust that the eyes of the Lord will be always upon us from the beginning of the year to the end of it.