I choose Life!

Prosperity After Turning to the Lord

Deut. 30 says, When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come on you and you take them to heart wherever the Lord your God disperses you among the nations, ² and when you and your children return to the Lord your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, ³ then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. ⁴ Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you and bring you back. ⁵ He will bring you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors. ⁶ The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. ⁷ The Lord your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. ⁸ You will again obey the Lord and follow all his commands I am giving you today. ⁹ Then the Lord your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The Lord will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your ancestors, ¹⁰ if you obey the Lord your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

The Offer of Life or Death

¹¹ Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. ¹² It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” ¹³ Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” ¹⁴ No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it.
¹⁵ See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. ¹⁶ For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
¹⁷ But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, ¹⁸ I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
¹⁹ This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live ²⁰ and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Seemingly all night last night I dreamed about this passage. I woke up specifically with verses 19-20 in my heart. I am not sure exactly what the Lord is saying, but these are the thoughts I've been thinking about.

As we live life day in and day out, how do we choose Life? In verse 19, it gives 3 principles that describe what choosing life looks like: Love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. In verse 15, it says Love the Lord your God, walk in obedience to him, keep his commands, decrees and laws and then you will live in increase. 

Heb. 3:7-11 says, "So, as the Holy Spirit says:“Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts

as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, and they have not known my ways.’So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

I guess that's the key for me, is not hardening my heart. You see, God likes to do things that I don't always like to do. He likes to take me to places and make me say things that are just down right uncomfortable. He likes to wake me up in the middle of the night or worse yet, make me wake up at some crazy hour to spend time with him. I hate it all.  So how do I not harden my heart, how do I not choose rebellion or worshiping other Gods (namely myself, comfort, convenience, fear of man, etc) but instead choose him? Verse 11 in Deuteronomy is encouraging. It is not too difficult or out of reach. Sometimes it just comes down to believing Jesus is who He says He is. 

I've been meditating on James 1 for a while as well. The issue of unbelief and how it paralyzes us in fear and keeps us from moving forward in the plans God has for us. Eph. 4:14 says, "so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." In James we are tossed to and fro because of unbelief. In Ephesians we are tossed because we are immature are cannot resist false doctrines. 

And then there is the verse: "Therefore thus says the Lord: You have not listened to Me and obeyed Me in proclaiming liberty each one to his brother and neighbor." The punishment for not proclaiming liberty is to be tossed to and fro. 

And finally going back to Deuteronomy in Ch 28:25 it says, "The Lord shall cause you to be struck down before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them, and you shall be tossed to and fro and be a terror among all the kingdoms of the earth." Why is God going too do that? Verse 14 says, "But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments and His statutes which I command you this day, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you." 

The ampliphied version says that the verse in Deut 28 was fulfilled in 2 Chronicles 29:6-8. "For our fathers have trespassed and have done what was evil in the sight of the Lord our God, and they have forsaken Him and have turned away their faces from the dwelling place of the Lord and have turned their backs. Also they have closed the doors of the porch and put out the lamps, and they have not burned incense or offered burnt offerings in the place holy to the God of Israel. [II Kings 16:10-16.] Therefore the wrath of the Lord was upon Judah and Jerusalem, and He has delivered them to be a terror and a cause of trembling, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your own eyes. 

What's even more interesting is Deut. 28:24, "The Lord shall make the rain of your land powdered soil and dust; from the heavens it shall come down upon you until you are destroyed."

All this meditation on to and fro began when I heard people calling Lubbock weather bi polar. Being tossed to and fro is the physical manifestation of being bi polar. If Deut 28:24 doesn't describe Lubbock weather I don't know what does.

So what now? It's a time of repentance. It's time to come back to The Lord. It's time to choose life that we may live. As for me and my house, I choose life!