Deuteronomy 11:1-32
Love and Obedience Rewarded
1 “Therefore you shall love the LORD your God, and keep His charge, His statutes, His judgments, and His commandments always. 2 Know today that I do not speak with your children, who have not known and who have not seen the chastening of the LORD your God, His greatness and His mighty hand and His outstretched arm— 3 His signs and His acts which He did in the midst of Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to all his land; 4 what He did to the army of Egypt, to their horses and their chariots: how He made the waters of the Red Sea overflow them as they pursued you, and how the LORD has destroyed them to this day; 5 what He did for you in the wilderness until you came to this place; 6 and what He did to Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, the son of Reuben: how the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, their households, their tents, and all the substance that was in their possession, in the midst of all Israel— 7 but your eyes have seen every great act of the LORD which He did.
8 “Therefore you shall keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong, and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess, 9 and that you may prolong your days in the land which the LORD swore to give your fathers, to them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ 10 For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which the LORD your God cares; the eyes of the LORD your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.
13 ‘And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.’ 16 Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 lest the LORD’s anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you.
18 “Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 20 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, 21 that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth.
22 “For if you carefully keep all these commandments which I command you to do—to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, and to hold fast to Him— 23 then the LORD will drive out all these nations from before you, and you will dispossess greater and mightier nations than yourselves. 24 Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory. 25 No man shall be able to stand against you; the LORD your God will put the dread of you and the fear of you upon all the land where you tread, just as He has said to you.
26 “Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse: 27 the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you today; 28 and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the LORD your God, but turn aside from the way which I command you today, to go after other gods which you have not known. 29 Now it shall be, when the LORD your God has brought you into the land which you go to possess, that you shall put the blessing on Mount Gerizim and the curse on Mount Ebal. 30 Are they not on the other side of the Jordan, toward the setting sun, in the land of the Canaanites who dwell in the plain opposite Gilgal, beside the terebinth trees of Moreh? 31 For you will cross over the Jordan and go in to possess the land which the LORD your God is giving you, and you will possess it and dwell in it. 32 And you shall be careful to observe all the statutes and judgments which I set before you today.
Love for the LORD and obedience to God’s word bring blessings, while sinful disbelief with disregard for Him and disobedience to all He tells us results in adverse consequences. Israel was warned of the failure to put His words int their hearts and souls, their entire lives. Do we pit the scriptures into everyday practice to guide and lead our actions and speech or do we (1 John 2:15-16, 17) satisfy ungodly desires as the direction of our lives? How much better to pursue the knowing and knowledge with wisdom in understanding of our Lord and His desire for our good in life and His glory in so living it! May we do as God’s people here were told, to remember all the great things He has done for us and how He revealed His glorious nature to our hearts and minds and souls. God provides for us in His divine providence to keep us from wanting any needed thing that is for our good (Philippians 4:11-12, 2 Peter 1:3, James 1:17, Romans 8:28) and we are blessed in our contentment (1 Timothy 6:6) as we follow His word in living it out in willing obedience to conform to His image (2 Corinthians 3:18, 1 Corinthians 11:1) as we imitate what Jesus taught and demonstrated to us in the life He lived before us as recorded in His word. If we continue to disobey or disregard pleasing Him and putting first what His word tells us, then the curse of unfruitfulness and displeasure loom in our way to an abundant life of His pleasure in Christ. We should be careful to observe all He has told us in the scriptures therefore, not to earn or keep our eternal salvation, but to lay up treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:19-20) that pleases Him as crowns of glory to His name and work to deliver us from our fallen nature’s idolatry and immorality. We do this by keeping His word before our eyes as the Jews of old did with frontlets containing scripture on their foreheads, but with the true intention of that practice by keeping them in our thoughts and actions (1 Timothy 4:15-16, 2 Timothy 2:15) and not in a book left mostly untouched and unread on display upon a shelf. There are true blessings of joy and fulfillment in Christ contained in these words recorded for us by those chosen by the Lord to make His will known for us to follow. Let us never stop our pursuit of holiness as we reverently work out our salvation (Philippians 2:12-13) and rely on His Spirit working mightily (Colossians 1:29) in us with eternal blessings we already possess (Ephesians 1:3) that we might desire and do all contained in these pages until we stand before Him in the promised land of the Kingdom of promise by faith in God’s word and work in His Son. Do we then choose blessings or curses as rewards or losses?
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