Leviticus 21-27: Fear God and Keep His Decrees

‘If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting, and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land.-Lev. 26:3-5 NIV

Why is it that God's decrees, which seem so easy and so profitable, are so difficult to follow?  Basically, all of God's commands in the preceding chapters boil down to one thing:  be holy because God is holy.  God gave his creation such a wonderful place to dwell, with everything we need to sustain an abundant life.  But, we choose the mundane, the sensual, the compromising, the dangerous instead.

So much of our lives now are governed by fear.  We fear the weather.  We fear terrorists.  Some of us fear the police.  Others fear any one of a different ethnicity.  We fear for our safety and we fear that we may not have enough.  All of this would be avoided if we feared the one who truly has control of events.  There is a simple formula for living in safety and plenty:  fear God and keep his decrees.