May 15, 2021
Please use the comment section on this page to share insights from today’s reading OR your own personal Bible reading.
Reading along with us in Deuteronomy? Here’s today’s reading:
Deuteronomy 28 (NIV)
Blessings for Obedience
1If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God:.......Continue Reading
WOW! obedience seems like a no-brainer after reading this very descriptive chapter regarding the curses you may experience as a result of disobedience. I want to be the head NOT the tail and so Lord help me to walk in Your ways everyday and never need to experience your curses but rather Your blessings!
Deuteronomy 28
Deuteronomy 27&28
It was very disturbing to read about all the horrible results of disobedience to God! I wonder why so much attention was given to this. It certainly promotes fear of a fierce God, while the blessings of obedience accentuate His loving kindness.
Blessings and cursings are an inherent part of God providing His law because He has to provide teeth to His standards because of the sinfulness of our hearts. Without the substance of consequences how would we know what God thinks about our behavior, both good and bad? Without the substance of punishment for any law, there would be less reason to follow it. Now that is because of our penchant for disobedience, and it is also because of that greater tendency towards evil that the cursings have to be more numerous and even more graphic. In the ugliness of the consequences is a description of the ugliness of sin. We may think sin is a little thing, but the cursings show us sin is a big thing and is to be avoided….well like the plague….
It is interesting to consider though how powerful love is….that if we love God and love people, we would find motivation and protection against our sinfulness…remember the law is summarized by it. And that is the higher and better way….but the consequences still need to be there to remind us what happens when we falter on a consistent basis and turn our hearts from God. And that is another thing to remember. That these cursings come with a consistent pattern of disobedience and forsaking God as opposed to being one who is seeking to be trained to avoid disobedience even in the context of it.
Wow….very disturbing curses….beyond what I imagined! I wonder if this is a glimpse of Revelation of those choosing to worship the Beast. Has this ever been the state of being of the Jewish nation?
64Then the Lord will scatter you among all nations, from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship other gods—gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your ancestors have known. 65Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole of your foot. There the Lord will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with longing, and a despairing heart. 66You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life. 67In the morning you will say, “If only it were evening!” and in the evening, “If only it were morning!”—because of the terror that will fill your hearts and the sights that your eyes will see.