To Bless or To Curse

Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live,

A Choice to Be Made

When God spoke to the Children of Israel in the wilderness, he offered a choice.

Life or Death.

Blessing or Curse.

We need to understand what God is saying here, because these choices apply to us as well.

Being a Christian is not just something we call ourselves.

Following God is not just something we do when it’s convenient.

God’s Word makes it very clear.

God offers life and blessing to those who follow him faithfully.

Those who reject him will receive death and be cursed.

Furthermore, as God’s children we are more than just messengers telling a story.

We are God’s vessels by which he wants to bless the whole earth.

But if we are not careful, we can just as easily bring death and curses into the lives of others.

Understanding the Choices

Life and Death

The Hebrew word that is translated life in this passage indicates movement.

Most living things do move at some point.

More specifically, it’s about moving toward someone or something.

So to choose life is to move toward God and others.

As we read last week:

Mark 12:29–31 ESV

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

People who have great relationships choose to do things together.

They work toward common goals.

They invest in each other.

Now when we look at the word translated in this passage as death, it also communicates movement.

The literal meaning is “to step away.”

So many relationships die because the people pull away from each other during a crisis.

Death is stepping away from others and what we have built together. It is isolation.

The most terrifying thing about Hell is NOT the fire and brimstone.

It is finally understanding how amazing God is, and being eternally separated from him.

So life is about moving toward God and others, building relationship, whereas death is stepping away in isolation.

Blessing or Curse

Just as the Hebrew words for life and death indicated movement, so do the words that are translated as blessing and curse.

The same word used to mean blessing in Deuteronomy 30:19 is also used in Genesis 24:11 to describe a camel kneeling down so his rider can climb on.

While it’s not common practice today in the US, bowing to someone has been a sign of respect in many cultures throughout the ages.

You bow to those whom you hold in great value or esteem.

So when you bless someone, you are saying that he or she is someone highly valued in your life.

Genesis 2:7 ESV

then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

In the story of creation, we are given the image of almighty God kneeling down to shape the dust into a man and then breath life into that man.

That tells me that we are very important to God!

The word bless is not just about seeing someone or something as valuable. It also means adding greater value.

So it is seeing someone as worthwhile and then investing in them so they can flourish.

Just as there is a choice for blessing, our choice can also lead the curse.

The Hebrew word for curse means a trickle or muddy stream caused when a river gets blocked.

Imagine having your land dry up because someone dammed up the river or spring that you depended on.

Your crops are dying.

Your drinking water is gone.

A curse is not so much the opposite of a blessing—it is the withholding of a blessing.

When you refuse to invest in others and withhold actions and words that could bring life to them, you are in fact cursing them.

Choose Carefully

It’s so easy to say that we choose to follow Jesus.

But we must realize that our choice is not just about us.

It’s not just about me choosing life and blessing.

It’s about me being a vessel for God to bring life and blessing to others.

If I refuse to reach out to others, I am essentially working to bring them death and a curse.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus shares the parable of the Final Judgment, when he separates the sheep and the goats.

He blesses the sheep, thanking them for feeding him, clothing him, making him feel welcome, visiting him when he was sick and in prison.

Then he curses the goats for not doing any of those things.

Both groups are confused, because they don’t remember Jesus ever being in any of those situations.

He responds to each group, as you did or did not do it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did or did not do it to me.

We say that we want to see others encounter Christ, engage in Community and embrace God’s call for their lives.

That will only happen when we help them discover the amazing life God offers them through his son Jesus.

And we can only help them by valuing them and investing in them, letting them know that they are worth our efforts to be there for them.

When we fail to take time for others, we are telling them that they are not worth our efforts.

How can we convince someone that God values them when we don’t value them?

1 John 4:7–11 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

This is a hard word, because it says that, if we choose to be vessels of cursing and death rather than blessing and life, then God’s love is not in us.

We cannot choose to accept life and blessing from God without also choosing to pass life and blessing to others.

If we choose to intentionally withhold God’s life and blessing from others, we are condemning them to death and God’s curse.

And if we so callously can invoke death and curses on others, then we are invoking them on ourselves as well.

Matthew 7:21–23 ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

Choose Now

Folks, we cannot be content with playing church.

Jesus came to bring us LIFE—ABUNDANT LIFE!

Life and blessing is about moving toward others.

Building relationships.

Seeing value in that person.

And investing in that person’s continued growth.

This is what God wants to do in us.

This is what God expects us to do with others.

Death and curse is about moving away from relationship and blocking opportunities for life and growth in others.

When we reject God, we our killing our relationship with him and denying him the opportunity to enrich us.

And even if we claim to love God, when we write off people and refuse to have relationship with them or invest in them, we are actually bringing death and curse into our own lives.

I don’t know about you, but I want LIFE! I want God’s blessing!

And with God’s life in me, I want to be his vessel.

I want his life and blessing to flow through me to others around me.

I want to be the means by which others encounter Christ.

I want to engage them in community so that they learn to engage Christ in a thriving relationship.

I want to invest in them so that they can see God’s amazing plan for them and embrace it wholeheartedly.

The choice is yours today.

Life or death.

Blessing or curse.

Your choice is not just made with your mouth, but with what you choose to be a vessel of for others.