Blessing and Curse: Deuteronomy 10, 11 (5)

Opening Prayer: Psalm 85.1-3
LORD, You have been favorable to Your land;
You have brought back the captivity of Jacob.
You have forgiven the iniquity of Your people;
You have covered all their sin.
Selah
You have taken away all Your wrath;
You have turned from the fierceness of Your anger.

Psalm 85.1-3
(Lyons: O Worship the King)
O Lord, You Your favor showed to Your land;
Your people You saved by Your mighty hand.
Their sins You forgave, all Your wrath You withdrew;
You turned back the anger which to them was due.

Today’s Text: Read Deuteronomy 11.8-17

Preparation
1. To what does keeping God’s Law lead?

2. What must we guard against as we love God and keep His commandments?

Meditation
Those who truly love God will keep His commandments, because they know the Lord, know that He loves them, and that He is all-wise and all-powerful. They therefore have no fear of obeying His Law, because they know it’s what’s best for them.

Obeying the commandments of God makes us strong to do His will and to lay hold on His promises (vv. 8, 9). Like the beautiful and fruitful land of Canaan, which lay just before the people of Israel (vv. 10-12), God’s precious and very great promises are offered to us in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might know Him truly and partake of Him really (2 Cor. 1.20; 2 Pet. 1.4). The more we contemplate Jesus, exalted in glory, the more we will delight in Him and in all His Word. Thus we will obey Him because we know Him and His love for us; and as we obey Him, the Spirit of God forms us more completely into His likeness (2 Cor. 3.12-18).

Israel must earnestly obey God’s commandments to be strong and realize His promises (v. 13). That phrase, translated literally, is something like “if hearing you shall hear” the commandments. It is possible to hear the commandments of God – and all His Word – whether by reading or listening, and not actually hear the Word at all. We need to be careful to hear with hearing, so that the Word sinks into our soul to begin its transforming work in us.

The best way to do this is to take what God gives us and immediately put it to work in serving Him (v. 13). Acting on what we hear helps to impress it more deeply on all our soul; plus, it brings the refreshing Presence of God to us, like “the early and latter rain” (v. 14), so that we bear fruit in the Lord by acting on His Word.

And at all times we must keep a close watch on our heart (vv. 16, 17). The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17.9); from it flow all the issues of life (Prov. 4.23). God is at all times looking into our heart, to make sure that what we do issues from love for Him and delight in His Law (Jer. 17.10). We need to do the same, or we may slip into self-serving or even idolatrous ways. That would provoke the discipline of the Lord, which is never pleasant (Heb. 12.3-11).

Love the Lord; hear His Word; act in loving service to others; and know the refreshing and fruitful Presence of the Lord with you always.

Treasure Old and New: Matthew 13.52; Psalm 119.162
God gave them a choice: Nourish your garden with a watering can, or I will water it with abundant rain from heaven. You choose. The only necessity is obedience to “every commandment.” God gives us the same choice. He is capable and able to bless us abundantly if we too obey every commandment through the power of the Holy Spirit. “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us…” (Eph. 3.20).

Reflection
1. How can we make sure that we’re always making choices and decisions that will keep us in the path of God’s will?

2. Why is it so easy for our heart to get in the way of obeying God? What can we do to avoid this?

3. What does it mean to “hear” the Word of God “with hearing”?

By often inculcating the same thing, viz., that they should diligently take heed, he indirectly arraigns man's proneness to superstition; and this too is again expressed in the words, "that your heart be not deceived;" for by them he signifies, that unless they take diligent heed to themselves, nothing will be more easy than for them to fall into the snares of Satan. John Calvin (1509-1564), Commentary on Deuteronomy 11.16

Help me to hear Your Word today, Lord, and to do what You command so that I…

Closing Prayer: Psalm 85.4-13
Pray that God will speak to you clearly from His Word, and give you something you can act on right away. Call on Him to help you guard your heart by keeping your focus on Jesus.

Psalm 85.4-13
(Lyons: O Worship the King)
Restore us, O God, renew us in peace,
and cause all Your wrath against us to cease.
Will You evermore all Your wrath to us show?
Revive us that we may Your joy again know.

Lord, show us Your love; restore us, we pray!
And help us to hear the words that You say.
Speak peace to Your people; in truth let us stand.
We fear You; let glory and grace fill our land.

In Jesus God’s grace and truth are combined;
both goodness and peace in Him do we find.
Truth springs from the earth as He walks in our midst,
and righteousness flows from the heav’ns as a gift.

The Lord by His grace will give what is good;
our land will produce abundance of food.
And righteousness will go before the Lord’s face,
and make of His footsteps a way in this place.

T. M. and Susie Moore

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. All quotations from Church Fathers from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy: Ancient Christian Commentary Series III, Joseph T. Lienhard, S. J. ed. in collaboration with Ronnie J. Rombs, General Editor Thomas C. Oden (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001). All quotations from John Calvin from John Calvin, Commentaries on The Four Last Books of Moses Arranged in the Order of A Harmony, Rev. Charles William Bingham M. A., tr. and ed. (Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society, 1863. All psalms for singing are from The Ailbe Psalter (available by clicking here).