Thursday, August 1, 2013

The rewards for obedience

Deut. 30:9-14
The rewards for obedience

     Then the Lord your God will prosper you abundantly in all the work of your hands, in the offspring of your body and in the offspring of your cattle, and in the produce of your ground, for the Lord will again rejoice over you for good, just as He rejoiced over your fathers; if you obey the Lord your God to keep His commandments and His statutes which are written in the book of the law, if you turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and soul. For this commandment which I command you today is not too difficult for you nor out of reach. It is not in heaven, that you should say, “Who will go up to heaven for us to get it for us and make us hear it, that we may observe it?” Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, “Who will cross the sea for us to get it for us and make us hear it that we may observe it?” But the word is very near to you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may observe it.
     Once again I will carry on the theme of the last couple of weeks in encouraging us to humble ourselves before God and repent both for ourselves and for the nation that we might once again see His blessing in the outpouring of a great revival and the restoration of our land. God is calling upon us to once again walk by His commandments and to do what is right in His eyes. I take great encouragement and comfort when He says – These laws are not out of our reach nor do we have to travel to the ends of the earth to find them, but they are near to us. The Bible often defines sin as lawlessness, which is, disobeying or disregarding the laws of God.
     We as a people and a nation have entered into all manner of lawless behavior but the challenge before us is not the gross sins of immorality and murder but the sins of the heart where all these things have their beginning. Our enemy, the Devil is subtle and does not immediately try to get us to kill someone, but rather he infiltrates our home with a movie where the bad guy is portrayed so cruel that you actually hate him and want to see the hero annihilate him. This seems ok – it’s just a movie, not real life – however, we have just entered into the heart of the sin of murder as we desire to see him killed. I hardly need to explain that God has told us to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us and that even the angels will not bring a rebuke against the Devil who is the author of all that is wicked! We have stumbled and our houses have become unclean.
     Did you know what God said to do if a murder is committed near your town? In Deut. 21 God says that they must offer a sacrifice for forgiveness that God will not allow the curse of bloodshed to be upon their land which will uproot all the blessings that God had promised to them. However, we invite bloodshed into our very homes! We bring it in with no thought of repenting or calling upon our Savior to atone for us, therefore, God’s punishment remains upon us. Furthermore God says that we will receive the consequences of our actions regardless of whether or not we have known that what we did was wrong. A pretty strict word isn’t it? Those who repent and turn aside from looking upon evil (Inviting it into their home) will be washed clean and the Lord will make His home with them. – Isaiah 33:14-17
     Bringing God’s word back to our attention and realizing that He fully means for us to obey it is a strong message for us today. Realizing that we are tied to His promises for either blessing or cursing in regard to our obedience is a reality. -Deut. 27-28 We have been created by God in His image to be rational and responsible men and women. He deals with us in accordance with the high calling for which we have been created – to be His friends! He greatly longs for the day when we will know Him more fully and enjoy His company forever.
     My brothers and sisters, now is the time to not delay in beseeching our Heavenly Father for His mercy and compassion and to turn away from the things that cause His anger to rise against us. We need to purify our homes and walk within them in the integrity of our hearts that we might walk uprightly before Him and do the things that please Him. It’s time to go through the scriptures and refresh ourselves with the words of what He requires of us. Jesus has come to reconcile us to the Father and to give us the power of the Holy Spirit that we might throw off all bondage to sin and live by His amazing and wonderful laws.  God bless you all!

9 comments:

  1. .Let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream
    ~Amos 5:24

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  2. Hi Shannon. Nice to meet you. You picked an excellent verse about righteousness and justice to go along with Seth's message. Fits well with what he is saying. Want to know how I see the verse you quoted? I see Justice and Righteousness as NEVER ENDING, UNSTOPPABLE (metaphorically) moving waters. I see they are both going in the same direction . They are both very SERIOUS and POWERFUL. They are moving hand in hand. They are separate waters yet moving together. THEY ARE OF GOD. That is how I personally see the verse you quoted about Righteousness and Justice . Thank you for quoting the verse little sister. God Bless.

    Oh....anyone see aunt Sue lately? She wasn't in the room last week. Tell her I missed her. I love hearing her comments.

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  3. Seth, good point about how we are putting murder in our hearts when we are viewing movies on tv and want the bad guy to die. (Sin Jesus talks about in Matt 5:27,28). I never though of it before. You got a really good point. Also, how you take it further to say the murder in our heart is just the opposite of how Jesus preached to love our enemy.

    QUESTION FOR THE ROOMIES- What do you think about how Seth brought up how God prospers us, blesses us when we obey His commandments and how God Himself said His commandments are not too hard to follow, keep ? Seth's quotes Deut 30:9-14 .

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  4. Hi If a man think it in his heart he has aready planted a seed already. Its all about Jesus and Him cleansing our hearts. Man faulters and that is why we need Him. He is our sourse. Tell me if you agree.Thank You God Bless you all.

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    1. Hello Carmella. I agree with you - we need Jesus in our heart. But I believe I see Jesus's existence in my heart differently than you. I can't picture Jesus in my heart WITH my sin. When I do sin, I knowing Christ, feel I have to get that sin out of me. I feel it don't belong with Christ in my heart. I think how much I love the Lord. I tell Him I am sorry for my sin, that I will turn away from it. Only then, do I feel God has cleansed me, made me pure again, and only then with a pure heart do I feel Jesus fits well in my heart. That is how I feel Carmella.

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  5. I’m on vacation and at the moment I don’t have bible handy. It depends what you mean by prosper, if it’s getting near to the Lord, that’s great. If you mean all of your finances and problems are taking care of no. If we look back at those who followed The Lord most of them had hard time, poor, persecuted and put to death because of who they believed in.
    No matter how hard we try to follow and obey the comments we’ll fail, they’re there to show us how much we need The Lord Jesus. The Pharisee and Religious people try to follow them; Paul himself also tried but failed.
    If I think by following the 10 commandments my life will be better, then I’m missing out on the Lord and what he wants from me. There’s only one in History that did that and that was The Lord Himself.
    The Lord himself told us, you will have trial, tribulation but be of good cheer I have over the world. Some will prosper others may not, and those that don’t are they not followers of the Lord?

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  6. Hi Larry. I read the verses Seth quoted above. His first verse goes right into how God prospers us when we keep His commandments.( Scroll up to recheck it). I am concluding that you must feel God changed his mind about Deut 30:9-14 and that we no longer can get this blessing. Hummm. As for the persecuted in the bible, I never pictured the apostles, for example, as being poor. I saw they had Jesus. They had everything. As for being persecuted, I didn't picture in my mind them being persecuted. I always pictured God with them. Even when they were put to death, I saw God in them. Larry. This is just me Larry. Love you Brother.

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  7. Hi Larry kepping are eyes on the Lord is what its all about and not on ourselfs. Its not about us to begin with and the holy spirit is there to guild us through. Its a hard road travel but our eyes and our mind should be on him thats what having a renewed mine.

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