Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Blessings and Curses

“See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse— the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today; the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. When the Lord your God has brought you into the land you are entering to possess, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings, and on Mount Ebal the curses.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭11:26-29‬ ‭NIV‬‬


I occurred to me as I was reading this text a while ago that the key to a Successful Christian Life is consistency. The roadway of life is littered with the spiritual corpses of those who have been fervently hot one moment and ice cold the next. In this passage, Moses is reminding the people that God was on their side. God was longing to bless. He was (and is) leading that rally for success, blessing, and a lifetime of grace and mercy.

He tells the Israelites that they must proclaim from the hills the blessings of the Lord and the cursings of the Lord. God doesn't change his requirements to keep blessing us. He expects us to navigate life with a desire to be under the blessing of God. Our behavior needs to be oriented towards the blessing of God. In times of victory or success, in times of calm seas and times of relative peace, we are prone to forget that we must steer clear of the rocky shores of compromise. Only in holding a steady course oriented on the blessing of God will we be sure to find all that the Lord desires to give us.

Ironically, while God Almighty longs to bless us, we can be an obstacle to that blessing. So as a reminder God wanted us to be constantly made aware that there is a right way and a wrong way, a way of blessing and a way of cursing. Clearly, God is desiring to bless. But the Almighty is not willing to overthrow your personal will and volition. You choose. Your choice, sometimes daily, sometimes moment by moment, is the way that you will stay under the cloud of his blessing.

Since the choice comes to us over and again success is the consistent navigation of life with the priorities of God and the commands of life's design clearly in your vision. I pray today that you will hear from both mountains the echoes of God's desire to bless you (Deut 28) and also the negative consequences of becoming shipwrecked upon the shoals of disobedience. God desires for your blessing and success in life. God's people, too, are cheering for you to choose rightly. The witness of heaven itself is choosing for you to choose obedience over selfish disobedience. But your choice is the deciding vote!

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