Are You Blessed Or Cursed?

DEUT 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 his ways, 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 heaven and 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.

This is part of the promise that God gave to the children of Israel. If you are a born again christian, you have been "grafted" on to that tree, and this same inheritance belongs to you.....you are part of the seed of Abraham! If you don’t understand how the grafting works, you can read Romans 11 and see how Paul explains it. The point is, that we are subject to these same promises (and curses) that God gave the children of Israel.

Let’s look closely at this text....(by the way, there are some very specific promises earlier in this book that you might want to read for your own personal understanding and inspiration). God says "hey.....this is NOT rocket science"..ALL of us have the "smarts" to understand this.

Well. pastor, sometimes I just don’t understand all that stuff in the Bible....it’s above me....I ain’t no Bible scholar......those are EXCUSES that you are making only to yourselves. The Bible says you can understand this just fine and Gods word doesn’t lie! Now, what you hear here today, you are going to understand just fine....and you will be responsible for it! 15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. I am so tired of christians constantly having the same old problems that they don’t have to have....they bring on themselves! 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, 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. That is a promise from God! You say "I DO love the Lord!" DO you? When you love someone with all your heart, you spend time with them, don’t you? Whenever I first met Nanci, I hated to leave her (she always made me go home, though!). I just couldn’t spend enough time with her....still can’t....cause I love her (and she’s not even God!) Hmmmm.....

What I want to tell you is that some of you, your love may have "waxed cold". You may be like those that Jesus was refering to in REV 2:4 where He says "You have forsaken your first love." Not only that, but if you’ll look it up it also says that He holds that against them...WHEW!!! Let’s look at some of the things we need to do to benifit from God’s promises!

The first thing I would like to share is this....YOU CAN’T NEGLECT GOD UNTIL YOU NEED HIM URGENTLY! What does that mean? Well, it simply means you have to be living in obedience to Him ALL the time...not just when you get yourself in trouble and need God to bail you out! You NEED to be in church....every chance you get! Spend some time with your "first love". I want to show you a principal here....the 10% principal....(Oh no, he’s gonna preach on tithes)...no, I’m just gonna share some things with you. Listen, God don’t need you to tithe! That’s right, He doesn’t need your money. But YOU need you to tithe in order to recieve Gods blessing in your life that He promises to us that obey His word!