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Topic:Blessed Promises
If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its season, and the ground will yield its crops and the trees their fruit.
Leviticus 26:3-4
What a beautiful passage! What a beautiful array of promises. When he asked them to observe his commandments he wasn’t referring to the Ten Commandments alone. He knew that fallen human nature, with its inbuilt tendency to self-sufficiency, would never be able to keep them. He meant not only the Ten Commandments but all the provisions for redemption which were provided with them — the offerings, the sacrifices, the cleansings, the healings, and all the other provisions which point to Jesus Christ. In other words, If you walk before me, he said, using the provision which I have made available to you to deal with the sin and rebellion of your heart, then these blessings will be yours.
The blessings are six-fold. There is a counterpart for each of these in the spiritual life today. God meant this materially for his people Israel, but it is also a picture of the spiritual blessings which are ours in our lives today. So this passage has direct application to us. The first promise is fruitfulness. God said, Your land will bring forth its fruit. Your life will be fruitful. It will be a blessing to others. Second, there will be full supply: Your threshing shall last to the time of vintage, and the vintage to the time of sowing; and you shall eat your bread to the full. You will have all you need, every resource will be provided for you. Third, you will have security: I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. No enemy that will come against you shall be able to overwhelm you or take you captive. God will protect you. The fourth blessing is increase: I will have regard for you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and will confirm my covenant with you. Your life will affect others. You will find the extent of your influence moving out, reaching out to larger dimensions. Fifth, you will have a divine sense of God’s presence, of fellowship with the Living God. I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people. You will have an intimate sense of communion with God. All of this is guaranteed by the character of God, the One who delivered Israel from the land of Egypt, the One who is able, sixth, to deliver and to dignify, to make people walk erect, as men and women ought to walk and to live. That is the kind of God he is and that is what he says he will do.
These blessings find their counterparts in our own lives in terms of the spiritual effectiveness and fruitfulness which God will produce if we lay hold of the provision that he has made for us in Jesus Christ, and if we deal honestly and openly with him. That is all God asks. He doesn’t ask us to be sinless; he asks us to be honest. He asks us not to kid ourselves, not to try to pretend, not to erect a facade, a wall that we hide behind, not to put on a mask which is not real, but to be honest and open and to avail ourselves of the resources that he has given in Jesus Christ.
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Father, thank you for your relentless love, and for all the blessings you have provided as I abide in Jesus Christ.
Life Application
The beautiful physical promises God makes have a six-fold spiritual counterpart to us in the Lord Jesus Christ who is our Life. Are we claiming them by faith in Him, for His glory, and also for our Joy?
