Deuteronomy 28:1-2(NKJV) 1“Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:
This week we have been studying the principles of divine prosperity. By divine prosperity, I am referring to that prosperity which flows from God. Divine prosperity will be a blessing in our lives and will enable us to be a blessing to others. God promises to provide for the needs of his children and to provide them with the ability to give. Poverty is not the will of God.
Yesterday we focused on a principle in the Word that says, “give and it shall be given unto you.” God bases his economic system on giving and receiving. This is the direct opposite of how most people see economic issues in the world. The world teaches things like getting, saving, and maximizing profitt. Although I believe that there is a place for all of those things, the foundation of God’s system has always been giving.
Giving is important to God’s economy because faith is at the heart of everything he does. In the world, the resources available limit us. God has no such limitation. When we go to him in prayer, he does not have to weigh whether he will meet our need or pay heaven’s energy bills. He does not have to try to find the resources to meet our needs. If what we need does not exist, he can simply create it. This is hard for us to grasp, but it is the reality in God’s economy.
As we approach God for our natural needs, the only limitation is whether we can believe him to provide those needs to us. Since the key that unlocks the door is faith, God requires that we show our faith by giving. Once we understand this perspective, giving makes complete sense. We give, which is the action we put to our faith for God’s provision, and God responds to that faith. The result is that we receive what we need.
The real foundation for anything we receive by faith is the Word of God. However, the Word of God is a statement of our covenant with God. We are not covenant minded. Israel was covenant minded. Everything they did was in response to their covenant with God. Although we do not think that way, it is no different for us. We have a covenant through the blood of Jesus. That covenant guarantees us certain things. One of those things is that God will care for us. When we believe God to meet our needs, the specific thing we stand on is the covenant.
Every covenant has a list of blessings and curses. Israel’s covenant was no different. The book of Hebrews tells us we have a better covenant based on better promises. If our covenant and its promises are better, they must include what the Old Covenant had and add to it. In Deuteronomy 28 we see the list of blessings guaranteed by the Old Covenant. This list also applies to the New Covenant in Christ Jesus.
Tomorrow we will look at the list of blessings and see what we have a right to expect from God when we stand on the Word of the covenant. Today I want to look at the “preamble” of this covenant blessing.
The first thing that we notice is that Israel must do two things to release this blessing. They must diligently obey God’s voice and carefully keep his commandments. Although we are not under the law in the same sense that Israel was, it is clear in all of the teachings of the New Testament that we are not excused from right living.
In the Old Covenant, Israel was under a curse from God when they broke the covenant. That was simply the way covenant worked. In the New Covenant, we were redeemed from this curse by the sacrifice of Jesus. (Gal. 3:13) However, we still have an enemy. When we do not live according to God’s ways, we open the door to death and one manifestation of that death is poverty.
If we want the blessings set out in Deuteronomy 28, we are still going to have to obey God’s voice and keep his commandments. In New Testament terms, we might say it this way. We are going to have to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit and obey the Word of God if we want to see this blessing manifest in our lives. God does not punish us if we do not do these things. However, when we do them we are applying principles that release God’s blessing. It is a matter of cause and effect, not reward and punishment.
The second clause of our preamble tells us that God is going to set Israel above all the nations of the earth. We are not a nation in the same sense that Israel was. However, there is a scriptural division between two groups of people. The Bible speaks of the church and the world. I believe this clause is telling us that if we walk in the blessing of God’s covenant, he will elevate us above the world. Why will he do this?
It is not so we can consider ourselves better than the world. John 3 tells us why.
John 3:14-15(NKJV) 14And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
The blessing of God will lift us above the world so that Jesus will be lifted above the world. When he is lifted up, he will draw men unto himself. That is the real reason God wants to bless and prosper you. He loves you and wants to meet your need, but he loves the world and wants them saved. When, in the midst of economic crisis, his covenant people succeed and have enough, Jesus is lifted up. We can then point to Jesus as the source of our success, and he will draw them to receive salvation.
The final clause of the preamble says this. “And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.” I find an interesting picture here. It says that the blessing will actually overtake us as we follow God’s voice and keep his commandments. That means that the blessings are faster than we are. In Matthew 6:33, Jesus tells us if we seek first God’s Kingdom everything we need will be added to us. This is the same picture. If you follow the Lord, you cannot go fast enough to outrun God’s blessings in your life.
What will happen if we decide to chase after the blessing instead of seeking the Kingdom of God first? The blessing is still faster. We will never catch it!
God has a wonderful list of blessings that he wants you to have. He is not holding out on you. However, he knows that if you set your heart on the blessings first you will have problems. Seek the Kingdom of God first in your life. Seek to serve the Lord and to serve others. If you do that, you can rest assured that the blessing of God is right behind you. It will overtake you. You will find yourself blessed in ways that you would never imagine if you focused on the blessing itself.
Leave a Reply