Deuteronomy 15: Obedience Brings Blessing

However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the LORD your God and are careful to follow all these commands I am giving you today. For the LORD your God will bless you as he has promised, and you will lend to many nations but will borrow from none. You will rule over many nations but none will rule over you. -Deut. 15:4-6 NIV

These words leap out at me as what might have been the promise at the founding of our country as well.  They could be the promise to us as individuals as well.  Obey The Lord and you will be blessed, nations, states, cities, individuals, all find blessings when they obey the Lord God, when hearts follow after him.  If you doubt that, look at the rise from the rubble of countries such as South Korea and the contrasting decline of North Korea; one where the majority of the population is now Christian and the other godless.

We can attribute the decline in our country and our own life to external factors, but the truth remains, God blesses those who follow his commands.  As Samuel said, "Obedience is better than sacrifice. (1 Sam. 15:22). I pray we will be able to apply it in our lives in order to live lives where we will be blessed and can bless others, rather living lives of poverty and subjection.

Deuteronomy 10: Over and Over and Over Again

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good?

To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. Yet the LORD set his affection on your forefathers and loved them, and he chose you, their descendants, above all the nations, as it is today. Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and do not be stiff–necked any longer. For the LORD your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. Deut. 10:12-17 NIV

He chose us, the God of heaven and earth, the God of the Ages, the Beginning and the End, he chose us and requires so little of us, yet we wander off on our own over and over again.  We choose alien gods, gods of clay, wood, hay and stubble, thinking that they can provide for our needs, but they fail, over and over again.  We wonder why our world keeps falling apart, over and over again.  All the while, God, our God, the one who has called us by name, stands patiently by, waiting for us to come to our senses and acknowledge him.  Acknowledge that without him, we are nothing.  He waits for us.  Over and over again, he stretches out his arms to us and we ignore him.  We ignore the God who owns the highest heavens and this puny earth that we call home.  We cast our eyes on other sources while he waits, over and over and over again.

Deuteronomy 8: Pride Before the Fall

Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. -Deut. 8:11-14 NIV

It is so easy to let this happen, to let our prosperity lull us into thinking that it is something of our own doing.  In the valleys of despair, we are very aware of our inability to do anything for ourselves.  At those times we bare our souls and cry out for God's intervention.  We recognize our total dependence on him as our source and we are not disappointed.  He always carries us through.

However, once we are out of the valley, once we have conquered the mountain, we begin to think that we have done it all in our own power.  As Moses says, when God's blessings become manifest in our lives, our hearts have a tendency to become proud and we forget that it was the Lord our God who brought us out of our despair and planted our feet on the high place.  It is at those times when we think that we have triumphed that we face the most risk of falling. 

Deuteronomy 4: Idle Worship of Idols

After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and provoking him to anger, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you. There you will worship man–made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him.For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath. -Deut. 4:25-31 NIV

Most of us would be hard pressed today to name our idols.  We know better than to worship gods of wood and stone, but then the majority of people on the earth no longer worship gods of wood or stone, they have become obsolete, replaced by the trappings of modern society.  Now we worship technology and all it has produced.  We worship our iPads, smart phones, and all that is contained in them.  We worship our cars, bicycles, motorcycles, recreational vehicles and even our houses.  We worship our children and grandchildren.  We worship our leisure. 

Ultimately, it is our leisure that drives us away from worshipping God.  It is in our leisure, when we are bored or anxious, that we turn to the one thing that calms us most.  Some of us run, some of us read, some of us watch CNN, some of us, those who like to think of themselves as holy, watch CBN, and some of us, myself included, play computer games.  None of these pursuits are harmful in and of themselves, but when they become our consolation, they become our gods. 

Moses reminded the Israelites of the consequences of worshipping other gods.  We face the same consequences today, but we also possess the same antidote.  If we seek the Lord God with all of our heart and soul we will find him.  We will find a God that meets all of our needs, who fills up all of the empty places in our lives, a God who makes the idle worship of idols unnecessary.

Deuteronomy 1: God's Promises

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The LORD your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert. There you saw how the LORD your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.”

In spite of this, you did not trust in the LORD your God, who went ahead of you on your journey, in fire by night and in a cloud by day, to search out places for you to camp and to show you the way you should go. - Deut. 1:29-33 NIV

This is often so true of us.  We have seen God go before us; have seen him fight for us, but, when he reveals what he has promised to us, we quake with fear.  It's too much.  No matter how much we want to believe the promise, we hesitate to reach out and grasp it.  It's too big we cry, we can't do that.  There are giant obstacles standing in our way.  Sure, the reward would be sweet, but we don't have what it takes.  We take the burden of the vision from God and place it on our own shoulders, and sure enough, it is too heavy us to carry.

God's promises, promises for our future, are not dependent upon our abilities, but on him.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jer. 29:11 NIV
The promises, the visions, the desires of our hearts are placed in us by him, and he will carry through on what he has promised.

Numbers 35: Bloodshed Polutes the Land

“‘Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it. - Numbers 35:33 NIV

Of all the things we Christians worry and fret about today, promiscuity, homosexuality, greed, licentiousness, etc., perhaps the most offensive to God is the shedding of innocent blood.  We still get up in arms about abortion, but there are not many speaking out about the murder running rampant in our country.  In fact, a lot of Christians are arming themselves  They see it as their right to protect themselves all the while shedding no tears over the young men, primarily minorities, who are dying daily.  We cannot protect our own lives without protecting the lives of others.  As scripture says, "Bloodshed pollutes the land" .   Our land is polluted by the bloodshed on television, in the movies and video games, and on the streets, not to mention the blood shed by abortion.  We have to address all of these issues if we want our land to be restored.

Numbers :24: No Fear!

God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.
“No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. The LORD their God is with them; the shout of the King is among them. - Num. 24:19-21 NIV

We have just returned from a trip to California to visit family and friends.  Whule we were there, we attended a worship service, held in the local Boys and Girls Club, where people from several churches got together to do nothing but praise and worship the Lord.  It was one of the most moving worship experiences we have had since we left our little church in Jockey Hollow, New Jersey.  If I were to use one sentence to describe that night, it would be, "The shout of the King was among us!"

We Christians, worry so about our place, our security in the world, just as the Israelites were prone to do.  And just like the Israelites, we are oblivious of the power we possess, a power that the world is aware of far more than we are.  Whether or not we acknowledge it, the world is afraid of the power of God and of those who possess his power.  We have the power of God in our midst, the God who only does wondrous things, and yet we concede that right to all of the principaliies and powers that are helpless in his presence.

I came away from that night convinced that we need to worship more and worry less.  The LORD our God is with us; the shout of the King is among us!  We have nothing to fear!