God loves us and He wants to bless us. It is enough to read the first fourteen verses of this chapter 28 of Deuteronomy to discover His will for His people and that even before the coming of Christ. He is still the same, His willingness to bless us has not changed and through the death and resurrection of Christ, He has done everything so that we live in His blessing. Ephesians 1: 3 states that in Christ we are blessed with all spiritual blessings and in Colossians 2:10 we have everything fully in Christ. If Jesus did not promise us an easy life (cf. Matthew 10:16 and John 15:20), He nevertheless gave everything so that we are blessed and nothing can prevent this ...

 

His blessing involves peace and joy in all circumstances, divine healing and health, provision to accomplish His will, abundant life, and eternity in His presence. It is the measure of life to which we are called in order to be a blessing to our world. Everything is done for us to live thus, there is nevertheless, this verse reveals to us an important condition so that His truth becomes our reality. It says here, “when you will obey” or according to other translations “when you will listen”. Because the Hebrew word “shama” which is used here (the Old Testament was written in Hebrew) means “to listen” but also “to obey”…

 

Which means that we cannot dissociate listening from obedience… It is impossible to claim to want to listen to God without obeying Him. Living in His blessing requires not only wanting to listen to God, hearing His voice, but also choosing to obey Him. In John 10:10, Jesus promises abundant life to His sheep, those who follow Him because they know His voice (cf. John 10: 4). We must therefore be careful not to want to just hear His voice, but to know how to follow Him, to obey what He says ...

 

It's interesting that the Bible does not emphasize hearing the voice of God but our ability to obey. Because God wants to speak to us, He speaks to us a lot and it is up to us to know how to listen to Him. It's simple, we just have to dispose our heart for Him, to give up trying to hear what we want, but to be ready to hear what he wants to say to us. It is an attitude and a disposition of heart which knows how to say “speak Lord Thy servant hears” (cf. 1 Samuel 3:10) and “here I am, send me” (cf. Isaiah 6: 8) when He has spoken. … It is this simplicity of faith that says “God says and I obey!”.

 

Finally, if listening to God is so simple, it is because the means by which He speaks to us is quite naturally the Bible, which we also call “the Word of God”. Each time we read it, God speaks to us, and it is up to us to know how to listen. To help us with this, there are 3 questions that we can ask ourselves when reading the Bible, namely: First: “What am I learning about God?”. Second, “What am I learning about myself?”. And third, “What can I practice or what must I do to obey?”. This last question is essential, because it reveals our obedience and thus releases the blessing.

 

So let's invest time to listen to God with this attitude of heart and this commitment to obey whatever the consequences!

God has blessed you richly so that you bless abundantly ...

Luke

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