“Look today I set before you a blessing and a curse: there will be a blessing, if you obey the commands of the LORD your God I am giving you today, and a curse, if you do not obey the commands of the LORD your God (11: 26 – 28). Obedience and disobedience were such weighty matters for God’s people that God demanded that upon entering the land that they proclaim the blessing at Mount Gerizim and the curse at Mount Ebal (11: 29). Joshua saw to it that this was done as soon as possible after entering the land (Josh. 8: 30 – 35). Every time they spied those mountains down through the centuries they would be reminded of the strategic importance of obeying God.
There cannot be anything more imperative in Christian living than obeying God. Because He alone is God He alone has the right to rule our hearts and compel our unquestioned obedience. Look: to obey is better than sacrifice Samuel informed King Saul after his disappointing disobedience (1 Sam. 15: 22). Think about how much of your Old Testament is allotted to the elaborate sacrificial system God established for His people and yet God says obedience is more important than all those sacrifices. Samuel didn’t stop there, he went on to declare that rebellion is like the sin of divination, and defiance is like wickedness and idolatry (1 Sam. 15: 23). James further amplifies this issue for us in the New Testament with his insight that if we are only hearers of the Word and not doers of it we are simply deceiving ourselves (Jam. 1: 22). Obedience is huge!
One of the reasons obedience is so big is that it invites the unique blessing of God on our life. Now, make no mistake, we are already the recipients of all of God’s choice blessings in Christ (Eph. 1: 3). What we are talking about here is the release of all those blessings in daily experience. How our God must long to bless us in so many tangible and spiritual ways and cannot due to our unfaithfulness. Only eternity will reveal what could have been ours had we simply been obedient at every turn. God has made His choice already. He will bless those who obey Him. Will you be that obedient and “blessable” one today?