Blessings or Curses?

Good Morning!

Deuteronomy 30:19 says, "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 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 your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

God is giving the children of Israel a choice; life or death? blessing or curse?  God is giving them a choice, they get to pick!  You would think that it would be an easy choice for them; blessing? curse?  Really, who would choose to be cursed?  But, we know that they did choose to be cursed.  They chose to follow the ways of the other gods and they turned away from the One True God.  The God of blessings and life.

God has always given his children a choice.  Even in the very beginning Adam and Eve had a choice; to choose to obey God or listen to the serpent.  They had the choice to enjoy all the good things God had for them right there before them.  Or, they could listen to the lies of the devil and choose death.  We all know how that story ended.  Why?  Why is it so easy to turn away from God and His blessings?  We know that His ways are so much better than anything we can imagine yet, we still want to go our own way.  We want to live our own lives the way we want to.

The children of Israel had a choice.  It was very clear and simple; obey God, follow His commands and be blessed or worship the foreign gods, live like you want and be cursed.  God said I will not bless you if you go into Canaan and worship the foreign gods and live like you want and forget all about me and my commands.  God told them that they would be cursed.  He said that they would dry up like the dust of desert and be scattered.

This weekend my sisters and I, along with our mom, got together.  We try to do this once a month.  I have one sister that lives close by but the others live an hour and half away.   It's sometimes hard with our busy schedules but I hope they feel like I do that it's worth the effort. 

Saturday, for some unknown reason I can't remember, we watched my wedding video.  I can't remember how that came up but we thought we get some good laughs out of it.  This February Bruce and I will have been married 26 years.  So, seeing the dresses and hairstyles alone was enough to give us a few laughs.  On the other hand, it was sad to see those that have already gone on to heaven and are no longer with us.  Yet, it ignited some very sweet memories.  For me, one of the sweetest was seeing and hearing my former pastor, Paul W. Martin, who is now preaching in heaven, prayer over Bruce and me.  When I listened to his prayer I was so moved at the "prophecy" in it. 

Bro. Paul very clearly prayed that God would bless us, bless our home, watch over us, keep us, give us health, give us a full measure of this world's blessings in the unseen road of life.  He prayed that the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ would always be in our hearts and home and that we would know that having Him in our home would be a blessing.  But, if we didn't have Him in our hearts that He was under no obligation to bless us or our home.

Those words have come to fruition. God has indeed blessed my home.  He has blessed our life with good health, our marriage, and our children.  Bruce and I had a choice 26 years ago.  We chose life.  We chose to commit our hearts and home to Him and to try to follow Him and obey Him.   It hasn't been easy.  It's been very hard at times.  We listen to His voice and we hold fast to Him.  Never, ever has God failed us or let us down.  He is our Faithful God. 

We are still a work in progress and learning more and more everyday about how to obey Him and follow Him wherever He leads. 

You have a choice, too.  Will you choose life or death?  Blessings or curses? 

May God's grace be with you all.

Kelly