The Promises of God - Part 2

Remaining in God’s Blessing Promise for our lives requires us not just to love, but also to obey him

In Review: The promises of God are conditional

A: Looking at what Moses explained

Analogy: There may be a promise that God gives you and it may be like this: He promses to give you a well of water. But then he tells you that the well of water, is at the top of a mountain, and that the rivine flows into the mountain, and there is no stream that is found in the valley below. So your job is to get to this well of water. The well represents a picture of blessing in your life. The blessing is a real promise, but to get the blessing will require cooperation, obedience and trust on your part. Just as much, you can decide to forget it, but you will lose the benefits of what that well will provide for you.

Deuteronomy 29:25-28

The New International Version Chapter 29

And the answer will be: “It is because this people abandoned the covenant of the LORD, the God of their ancestors, the covenant he made with them when he brought them out of Egypt. 26 They went off and worshiped other gods and bowed down to them, gods they did not know, gods he had not given them. 27 Therefore the LORD’s anger burned against this land, so that he brought on it all the curses written in this book. 28 In furious anger and in great wrath the LORD uprooted them from their land and thrust them into another land, as it is now.”

When Israel was commissioned by Moses, and Joshua recieved the leadership, there was a picture here that we can understand. The promsed land, was a real promise, but it was not separate from the obligation of love for God, of pure worship, without any idolatry. The danger was explained that it was possible for them to be expelled from the land.

Another danger for the children of Israel was that they could become stubborn, and even if they tried to retain the blessing of God without love and obedience for him, and they placed their roots down, the words of Moses here express that they will be uprooted, if they are disloyal to the covenant of God.

Another danger for the children of Israel is a displaced psychology of being self-determined. Ever since the fall of humanity, into sin, there has had drastic effects of sin that effect us spiritually and emotionally and in our human experience and also psychologically. If we are subdued by our sinful nature, it means that we can fall into thinking that our own desires, that are described by God as sinful are actually our own desires. God has promised a life of holiness and knowledge and love and relationship with him, but the life of sin, is marked by God causing a love for, and a desire for what is wrong, through a curse.

Deuteronomy 3011-20:

The New International Version Chapter 30

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.

B: Looking at what Jesus explained

John 14:15–21 (NIV)

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Another way of expressing the Greek is that Jesus is saying “if you love me, you will obey my commands”. The issue at stake is that the quality of the life and the blessed state of the life and the benefits that come from living within that state are not things that are possible to just take place in our lives. To experience the blessing of righteousness, you cannot be living an unrighteous life. It is not something that God witholds in the sense of not giving treats to a child. It is that, the treat is the righteous value of living and the benefits that righteousness brings to our lives. It brings the order of God’s purpose in our lives and the way to enter this life is through the Spirit.