Blessings and Curses
The truth of this chapter hit me hard today. I'm not sure I will be able to communicate what I feel like the Holy Spirit spoke to me, but I'll try.
The profound simplicity of this passage is what did me in. "Obey Me," God says, "and I'll bless you for it." Powerful. Worth quite a bit of reflection and meditation, I think...
Of course the converse is true as well. "Disobey me, and I'll curse you." We don't like that one as much, but it's equally as true.
Then I comforted myself with the reminder that now in the New Testament era, God really isn't concerned about works, so much as He is concerned with faith. Then I remembered Jesus' message to the seven churches in Rev. 1-3. Jesus was pretty concerned with their works. He even said to one of the churches, "I have not found your works perfect before God." Ouch. I honestly feel fear that if Christ were to come and stand in my room and talk to me about my life, that He would probably say something like that.
The simple fact is that God cares about our holiness, our purity. He expects us to live righteously, to "be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation..." (Phil. 2:15).
The simplest and most profound idea in all of this is this: WE HAVE A CHOICE. We can actually stop sinning. We can choose to obey God (those of us who are in Christ). So let's do it. Let's be blessed in our obedience to God.
Created almost 4 years ago
