“If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God…” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2).

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. I hope you will all take time to thank God for the freedom we have in this country and to ponder the cost of this freedom. I would encourage you to wonder if there is an erosion of freedoms in the so-called free world. Since this is not a cultural or political reflection, that is all I will say on that topic.

Let us turn to Deuteronomy 28 which the New International Version has divided into two sections: “Blessings for Obedience” and “Curses for Disobedience.” These subtitles make it appear as if blessings and curses are simply opposites. Such a division also suggests that our relationship with God is basically ‘quid pro quo’. If we obey God, we get all the blessings we can imagine.

Some versions of the “Prosperity Gospel” give the impression that the material blessings in this chapter will come pouring out of the heavenly slot machine if we press the right behavior buttons. Has that worked out for you? Real life tells us that this is not the way it works. And the Bible does not lay things out that neatly.

Clearly, if the curses happen, they will come as deserved punishment for Israel’s disobedience. But there is no corresponding sense in which the blessings can be earned as a reward for obedience. The whole thrust of Deuteronomy protests this idea. Israel is bluntly warned to make no equations between military or material success and her own merits (8:17; 9:4-6).

Rather, God’s blessing on God’s people is already there in the very fact that they are God’s people. It is intrinsic to the promise made to Abraham and to the covenant relationship. The blessing of God always initiates His relationship with the world. It is the way grace works. God’s blessing is here to be enjoyed.

But here is the caveat: this grace and blessing can only be enjoyed by living in God’s way in the land God is giving them. Obedience, therefore, like faith, is the road we travel to experience God’s grace and blessing, not how we come to deserve them. Its like a gift. To enjoy it, one must unwrap it and use it in the way it is designed. If you leave it wrapped, you cannot enjoy it. Also, if you try to make a model car fly, you will crash and destroy it.

In Christ, the church’s relationship with God is essentially the same as Israel’s. We find it all over the book of Ephesians. It begins, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (1:3-4). And later, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (4:32).

We do not need to earn God’s grace. Its already ours. We get to unpack it and explore all its dimensions. So, are you living within the grace God has given you? Are you using it well? Are you loving as you have been loved? What is one thing can you do today to live more fully in the grace God has given you?