The end of things to come

We finished our Lev study this week, much to the groans and tears of so many people. Actually, I think most would agree that it has been a challenging book to wade through, but there has been some wonderfully redemptive messages for the day.
We finished in ch 26 after highlighting 27 because 26 speaks of the charge of blessings and curses for obedience or disobedience. This is found in other passages at the conclusion Torah sections so I felt it appropriate to conclude our time with that same theme. However, as much as you would think that warnings about obedience might be a downer, it turned out to be an exciting time. We ended up paralleling Lev 26 with Duet 30 in our time. Some of what we saw was warnings for obedience with the receiving of blessing, blessings of livelihood (crops and rain), Peace (no “S-words for 200 Alex”, or wild animals), and finally presence (I will camp with you and you will be my people…). The curses were in fact the opposite being played out in great detail.
We also looked at the prophetic voice in Lev 26 (more so in Deut 30), having an exilic and post exilic language, “The land will receive its Sabbath when you are removed…” “Circumcise your hearts…” And by the second Temple, Deut 30 was considered prophecy. By the way
Deut 30 is one of the most beautiful passages of Torah, we see God heart pleading for his people to choose life, please take time to read it. Anyway, one of the fun things that came out was that whenever discussion on blessings and curses come up we always default to “I better be good in order to be blessed”, “I want blessing in my life…” “It’s not working for me I must be doing something wrong” And it’s funny (with tears in my eyes) that this is the level of conversation that we have when discussing it. However, if we remember the covenant in Gen 12 we see God purpose for his people, their mission and focus of obedience is to be blessed and be a blessing. And so we switched our conversation for the morning off of ourselves. Maybe we should be desiring obedience not for blessing, but for being a blessing. The judge of your obedience and closeness to God does not rest on your personal gain, rather on your personal output. And so we should choose life, not for our success and lively hood, but for the lively hood and success of others. We should choose life, not so we can experience peace, but so we can give peace to others. We should choose life, not so that we have a relationship with God, but that we can introduce that gift of relationship to others. This changes things up a little doesn’t it? In fact how’s it working for you? Will you choose disobedience and therefore have a life producing a wake of curses, death and destruction? Or will you choose life and blessings so your life can be a conduit for Gods life and blessing to pass through? What do you want God and other to know you for?