INVISIBLE, BUT NOT ABSENT

Esther 2:15 “Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her.”

Esther is the story of how God used one woman to change the fate of an entire nation. As I read through the book, I discovered that the book of Esther is the only book out the 66 books of the bible where God is never named. In fact, a lot of people over the years didn’t think it should even be included as one of the books of the bible for that reason.

But I disagree. Because even if you can’t exactly find God’s name, you can find his fingerprints on every page. In the book of Esther, we find God working through the lives of 5 people to carry out his will. Even though he’s invisible… he isn’t absent. In fact, that’s really the theme of the entire book. “God’s invisible… but he isn’t absent.” And if you could just remember that, it would help you make it through life a lot easier. Even though we can’t see him, God’s working in our lives to carry out his will. Guiding us. Directing us. Leading us, most of the time without us even knowing it.

From my puny perspective, I can only see today and yesterday (even then I have trouble). But God can see tomorrow. Our hindsight is almost 20/20, so we’re great at history, but we stink at prophecy. I have no clue what’s going to happen in the next minute, let alone the next week. But God doesn’t have any problem seeing what’s coming. Augustine put it this way, “Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love and the future to God’s providence”.

The word “providence” actually comes from 2 Latin words, "Pro" which means "before;" and "Video" which means "to see." So, providence means "to see before." In other words, God sees beforehand and plans accordingly. When we talk about the providence of God, we’re talking about God’s ability to see what’s going to happen, before it happens and adjust his plans to deal with it.

God’s never caught by surprise. He never says, “Whoa! I didn’t see that one coming!” While we have no idea what’s going to happen next, our invisible God is continually, constantly, confidently working behind the scenes to work his plans. We’re down here going crazy, screaming at God, and asking “What do you think you’re doing?” Why’d you allow that to happen? But he knows exactly what he’s doing. He blesses us and we praise him for his incredible timing, but when he tests us, we squirm and question his intelligence.

Like back-seat drivers, we’re crying out…“God! Watch out for that oncoming truck! Whoa! Here comes a stop sign. While he’s got his hand on the wheel, he’s perfectly calm weaving through traffic with the greatest of ease. In the midst of all the chaos of our lives, he knows what he’s doing. We’re tempted to take the steering wheel, but the minute we do, we crash.

God placed Esther in the right place at the right time to carry out his will and his plan for the salvation of his people. Mordecai knew that, and Esther learned it. The same holds true for us. God has us in the right place at the right time to serve him and bring about the fulfillment of his will. It’s not coincidental that you work where you do. It’s not fate that you live in the neighborhood you live in. Your life, your relationships, your job, your friends, your “everything” is not just dumb-luck. It’s providence.

THANKSGIVING

Psalms 100:4 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.”

What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving? Eating, football, long weekend, shopping, history, or family? Thanksgiving is much more than any of this. True thanksgiving is not just a day for food, football, and family. It’s not just a holiday every fourth Thursday in November. For God’s people, everyday ought to be Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Day is a distinctive holiday. It doesn’t commemorate a battle or anyone’s birthday. It is simply a day set aside to express our thanks to God. Did you know that in 1789, George Washington made a public proclamation saying that, “it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor?” He recommended and assigned Thursday, the 26th day of November 1789 to be a day of Thanksgiving.

Of course most of know the story of the pilgrims and how they and the Indians of the area had a Thanksgiving feast in 1621 – long before Washington’s proclamation. Even earlier than 1621 – we find people offering up thanks to God. In the Old Testament we find a Song of Thanksgiving. It is Psalm 100. It is subtitled “A Psalm of Thanksgiving”. It is an invitation to join together to acknowledge the great things that God has done. Not only does Psalm 100 call us to praise the Lord with thankfulness – but it also describes to us the nature of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is what flows out of a thankful heart. In Luke chapter seventeen there is a very interesting story. Jesus enters a village and upon entering He finds ten men who were lepers. They stood a long way off and yelled out to Jesus, "Jesus, have mercy on us!" When Jesus saw them, He said to them, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." Did you know that they had not been cleansed yet? They left before they were cured – because the Bible says, “that as they went along, they were cleansed.” Do you know what happened then? One of them – only one of them – when he saw that he was healed, turned around and went back to see Jesus. The Bible says he fell down on his face at the feet of Jesus, glorified God and thanked Jesus for what He had done. Only one out of ten thanked Jesus. Do you remember what Jesus asked him? "Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine?

Thankfulness will come only from a grateful spirit. We should be challenged to consider all of God’s goodness. Upon true, deep consideration of all he has done for us, our hearts should be turned towards thanksgiving. Let us never take for granted who God is to us. Let us never forget just how much he loves us.

This Thanksgiving – with all the preparations, events and excitement – my prayer – is that God is thanked – with joy and gladness – with thankfulness and gratitude – and with a heart dependent on him.

A GOD WHO KNOWS NO LIMIT

Jeremiah 23:23 “Am I only a God nearby, declares the Lord, and not a God far away?”

God has no limits. That’s hard for us to even imagine, because most of our frustrations in life are a direct result of limitations. We’re limited by space because we can only be in one place at one time. We’re also limited in our knowledge. The old adage is true, "The more you learn, the more you know how much you don’t know". Living in an information based society like we do, we realize that we’ll never know even a fraction of what we could know. We encounter more information in one issue of The New York Times than a person in 18th century England encountered in his or her entire life. We’re constantly facing circumstances where we don’t know what to do, trying to answer questions we don’t know the answers to.

We also face limitations in our resources. As much as we like to pretend that we’re invincible, all of us have a breaking point; all of us reach the point of being physically exhausted, mentally spent, spiritually empty, and financially busted. We’re overwhelmed with the needs around us, whether it’s the transient at the gas station or a co-worker who can’t meet his rent, yet we look at our own resource and realize how limited they are. Because we’re so accustomed to these kinds of limitations it’s hard for us to conceive of a God who isn’t bothered by limitations.

As Christians we sometimes forget that God is already present. We tend to think of God’s presence is being like a NASA spy satellite. The satellite is roaming around the atmosphere, present one day, gone the next. You never know when it’s here and when it’s not. Sometimes our worship songs reflect a misunderstanding of God’s presence. When we ask God to "come" and "fill this place" we’re not asking God to be more present now then he was yesterday or last week. God is as present today as he ever has been and ever will be. When we sing these words we’re not asking God to be present, we’re asking God to make his presence known, to draw us into an awareness of his presence, to help us experience his presence as we worship.

We don’t have to beg and plead with God to show up, we don’t have to worry a Sunday might come when he doesn’t show up in our worship. Since God isn’t limited by space, we can draw near to him at any time, in any place. God is as present today in the local restaurant as he is in our worship service. God is as present today in the adult bookstores as he is on the seminary campus, as present in the bedroom as he is in the chapel, as present on the battlefield as he is at the peace negotiation table.

We can be absolutely confident of this reality, that God is always present with us wherever we are. We may not always feel his presence, we may even feel alone, but we can be confident that he’s here.

God is working to bring about his will, to fulfill his purposes, and he has all the resources he needs to accomplish his will. Because of this, we can anticipate God working in our lives, often in surprising ways. We can anticipate God bringing about amazing circumstances in our lives. We can expect to even see God intervene miraculously in our lives.

GOD IS IN CONTROL

Haggai 2:21-23 “"Tell Zerubbabel governor of Judah that I will shake the heavens and the earth. I will overturn royal thrones and shatter the power of the foreign kingdoms. I will overthrow chariots and their drivers; horses and their riders will fall, each by the sword of his brother. " 'On that day,' declares the Lord Almighty, 'I will take you, my servant Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel,' declares the Lord, 'and I will make you like my signet ring, for I have chosen you,' declares the Lord Almighty."

How much of your life do you control? You can eat right and exercise daily, but you don’t control the number of your days. You can live a healthy lifestyle and see your doctor regularly, but when an illness comes you can’t prevent it. How many people, who by the power of their own will kept cancer away or prevented some sickness? We cling to our jobs as though they provide us security, but anyone who has ever lost a job can tell you the loss of control that is felt in that moment. There is much of life you cannot and will not control, but you can be sure that God is in absolute control of everything, including your life.

Six times in our passage God tells us that he is in control. He says,

• “I will shake the heavens and the earth;”
• “I will overthrow the throne of kingdoms,”
• “I will destroy the strength of the kingdoms…”
• “I will overthrow the chariots and those that ride in them…”
• “I will take thee…”
• “I will make thee a signet…”

These are not foolish statements given by a braggart, but promises made by the Sovereign God of the universe. “I will,” without a doubt, you can take it to the bank, write it down and date it – I will do this and that. I am in control.”

Why did Zerubbabel need to hear that? Because when things got so bleak in the nation of Israel there may have been some cause for the faint of heart and weak of faith to doubt God’s control over their physical circumstances. God in essence says to these people, “You know it was bad yesterday, and you see it is bad today, and you have grown to believe that things are never going to get any better, but I want to remind you that I’m in charge around here!”

The people could not control whether or not it rained. They could not control how much their crops and vineyards and orchards produced. They could not control many things about their lives, but they could control the one thing that mattered most in all of that – they could control their responses.

Sometimes bad things happen because we invite them. Sometimes we simply live recklessly with our relationships, our possessions, with our time and talents and we bring them home with us. Other times bad things just happen. Regardless of why we go through trying circumstances that are beyond our ability to control, the one thing we do control is our response to God in the midst of those circumstances.

God is in control. That is the response I absolutely must give when things in my life are falling apart. Do you remember the old westerns where we’d see an enclosed buggy being pulled along by a team of horses? There would be passengers inside the buggy being led along by the driver on his seat perched atop the buggy. Imagine if the ride got pretty bumpy and the riders inside the buggy insisted that the driver hand them the reigns. Can you imagine the outcome if some one thought that he could effectively drive that coach from inside with such limited vision and sense of direction? Well isn’t that exactly what we are doing when we try to take the reigns from God? From where God sits he can see everything. He knows exactly where we’re headed and knows the way that is best for us – but too often when the ride gets bumpy we, with our limited vision and sense of direction, try to take over and drive ourselves.

No matter how down and discouraged you get; no matter how much you want to quit and give up; don’t ever forget that God is in control. When the people of Israel got down, they got way down. They had hit bottom, and they were right where God wanted them to be. The good news is that that’s not where God wanted them to stay. After considering their ways God wanted them to consider his ways. He is in control. He keeps his promises, and he is on our side.

GOD IS GOOD

Job 34:10 “So listen to me, you men of understanding. Far be it from God to do evil, from the Almighty to do wrong.”

How many of you say grace at meals? As children grow older, they want to have a little fun with the prayer itself. So you sometimes get prayers like this: "Good bread, good meat, good Lord, let’s eat." Or this: "Thank you, Lord, for this meal; we know you are the giver. But thank you, Lord, most of all, that we ain’t havin’ liver." Now, you will have to decide for your own household whether these prayers will be tolerated as expressions of youthful wit, or suppressed as sacrilegious. At our house, we take a firm stand. Those kinds of prayers are not allowed, unless they’re really funny.

When I was growing up, I learned this prayer: "God is great, God is good, and we thank him for this food: By his hand we all are fed, give us, Lord, our daily bread." Any of you use that? Short, simple, good theology. And when you’re done, the potatoes are still warm. Do you believe that God is good?

It’s easy to just reflexively answer, "Yes." We know that’s what we’re supposed to say. And of course, it’s easy to say "God is good" when things are going well. But when we’re suffering, when we’re going through a time of pain, or difficulty, or trial, then it becomes more of an open question, doesn’t it? Our response at those times to the question of whether God is good doesn’t come so quickly and automatically. We wonder, "If God is good, then why this?" Why this illness, why this painful relationship, why this financial problem, why this loss, why this disappointment? And so, even if we keep saying to ourselves and others that God is good, there’s a nagging voice in the back of our head that says, "Really?" "Is God really good?"

The Bible teaches that God is good. He is morally upright and pure. He is just and righteous. There is not the slightest hint of evil, or sin, or wrongdoing in his nature. He is absolutely perfect and holy. God always does what is right. Period. God will never treat us unfairly. He will never break his promises. He will never punish anyone unjustly. Now, sometimes we have a problem with this idea, because we have a very high opinion of what we deserve. We believe that we deserve good health. And so when the biopsy comes back positive we conclude that God is treating us unfairly. We have a "right" to financial security and prosperity. So when we get handed a pink slip, we think God has slipped up somehow. We deserve a trouble-free life. So when the storms of life blow through, we grumble against God and his oversight of our lives.

But the Bible says that God always does what is right. So if there’s a discrepancy between my expectations and the reality, then the problem isn’t with the quality of God’s justice. The problem is with my expectations, my inflated idea of what God owes me. God is good all the time.

God is good to us. I could quote literally dozens of verses to make the same point. Most of us could think of examples in our lives of how God has been good to us. God is good to his people. But if that’s true, then why do we doubt? Why do we wonder whether God is really good? Because we lack God’s perspective. We lack his wisdom and knowledge and understanding. Sometimes the work God is doing in our lives doesn’t seem good at all. It just seems painful and destructive. We look at what’s happening and say, "How could this possibly be anything but bad?" We don’t understand, and so we resist and rebel. But here’s the key: God loves us so much that he is willing to do what is necessary in our lives to bless us, even if we can’t understand or appreciate it. He is willing to do what is in our long-term interest; He is willing to seek our eternal good, even at the cost of short-term pain. God loves us enough not to stop when we complain or protest, but to continue working in our lives even when we resist and complain.

God doesn’t ask us to understand. He only asks us to believe that he is good, and to trust, and follow, and obey. He asks us to believe that the end result is worth the pain and struggle, to believe that he knows what he’s doing, to be willing to place our confidence in him rather than in ourselves or our own understanding. Will you do that today?

TRUSTING VS. TRYING

Galatians 3:14 “He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit."

In our scripture we come to the heart of the matter that Paul has been referring to up to this point in his letter to the Galatians: The conflict between two alternate roads to righteousness: trusting and trying. How does one please God? What makes a person truly a Christian-- trying to act in a way that seems pure and Godly or trusting in a Savior who paid the price for sin?

Paul Points out that there is a vast difference between these two roads to righteousness. So what’s the difference between trusting and trying and more importantly which is the right road? It’s a leading question that Paul is asking, because he knows that they received the Spirit when they believed the good news that Jesus died for their sins--he was there when it happened. These other teachers who claimed that they must follow the external requirements of the law--what to eat, what to wear, how to look--they came along later with their new prescription. Paul asks which prescription, faith or the law led to your receiving the Spirit and salvation? The law isn’t able to work salvation, nor to change human hearts, all that it is able to do is show the need for salvation.

The law is like a dentist’s little mirror, which he sticks into the patient’s mouth. With the mirror he can detect any cavities. But he doesn’t drill with it or use it to pull teeth. It can show him the decayed area or other abnormality, but it can’t provide the solution. So the prescription of the Law leaves us sick, but the prescription of faith leads to salvation.

A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, who was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII. One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges. "It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor," the man told the mayor. "She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson."

LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said "I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions—ten dollars or ten days in jail." But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: "Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. ’Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.’"

So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals and New York City policemen chipped in the rest.

Just like that lady we have each been caught red-handed, with nothing to say for ourselves. A just God knew that the penalty had to be paid, and he gave his most precious treasure, his beloved son, Jesus Christ to pay the penalty of our sin. But he didn’t just redeem us from the curse; he also showered us with blessing, giving us life more abundantly, life in the Spirit, which beats $47.50 any day.

MAY I HELP YOU?

Psalms 121:2 “My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”

“May I help you?” That is a familiar greeting when we walk into a store. Anyone who has ever worked in a retail environment knows that question well. We need help most of the places we go. If we go out to eat someone may help us find a table. They take our order. Someone else even cooks the food. Do you remember the days when gas station attendants would fill ‘er up? There were times when grocery stores employed bag boys to carry your groceries out to the car.

When you think about it, we are all dependent on someone for something. We all need someone’s help. The problem occurs when others let us down. Even if something has a lifetime warranty, it is useless if the one who gave you the warranty goes out of business. People will fail us, but there is someone to whom we can turn for help that is reliable.

People and things will let us down. There will always be someone who doesn’t come through for us. I am a baseball fan. There are always some players that are called “clutch players.” They are the ones who make the perfect pitch or get the timely hit at a key spot in the game. When the game is on the line he is the one you want on the mound or in the batter’s box. Not everyone is perfect though. The best pitchers give up home runs. The best hitters strike out at key moments. Even the best “clutch player” fails from time to time. God never fails.

You see God created all the stuff we depend on. God created the Church. God created the family. God created the universe. I think it is a better idea to go to the source. Back at the turn of the 20th century there was an inventor who invented a new machine. He built several of these machines. One factory bought a machine. After a while they had a problem with it, and it quit working. Engineers from the company looked at it and tried to figure out what was wrong with it. No one could figure out what was wrong. Finally the owner of the factory called the inventor. He came out. He looked at it for a couple minutes, and then he got out a tool and tinkered on it for a couple minutes. He turned to the owner and said, “Well, your problem is solved.” The inventor handed the owner a bill for $100. Now remember this was over 100 years ago and $100 was a lot of money then. The owner exclaimed, “$100! You were only tinkered around for a few minutes.” The inventor replied, “$10 for tinkering and $90 for knowing where to tinker.”

When we need help it only stands to reason to go to the one who created the world to begin with. The inventor knew more about the machine than anyone because he built it. God knows more about what we need because he created us to begin with. God’s greatest desire is for us to have a relationship with him that is right. He wants us to depend on him. There is no other way than to trust him.

THE HOPE OF RESURRECTION

1 Corinthians 15:23 “When Christ comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life."

Suppose you were walking past a farm one day and saw someone sitting in the field crying. There they sit, inconsolable at the head of a furrowed row. Concerned, you approach them and ask what’s wrong. They look up from beneath their John Deere tractor hat and extend a palm full of seeds in your direction. “My heart breaks for the seeds,” they weep. “Excuse me?” you might ask. Between sobs they explain, “The seeds will be placed in the ground and covered with dirt. They’ll decay, and we will never see them again.” As they weep, you are stunned. Finally, you explain to them a basic principle of farming: Out of the decay of the seed comes the birth of a plant. You kindly remind them: “Don’t mourn the burial of the seed. Don’t you know that you will soon witness a mighty miracle of God? Given time and tender care, this tiny kernel will break from its prison of soil and blossom into a plant far beyond its dreams.”

Any farmer who grieves over the burial of a seed needs a reminder—a time of planting is not a time of grief. Any person who anguishes over the burial of a body might need the same reminder. We may need the reminder that Paul gave the Christians in Corinth. The resurrection should be one of the most anticipated events of Christ’s coming and it’s an essential element of the Christian faith. When Jesus returns the first major event will be the resurrection of the dead. In fact, the Bible says, “the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NLT).

Just as with our Lord, our bodies, which are now perishable, dishonored, weak, and natural, will be raised into bodies that are imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. The coming resurrection is the hope and motivation of the church and of all believers. Whatever happens to our present bodies—whether they are healthy or unhealthy, beautiful or plain, short-lived or long-lived, or whether they are indulged or tortured—they are but a seed that is placed in the ground and one day our blessed hope and assurance is that these created natural bodies will be transformed into wonderful, eternal spiritual bodies. Although we have only a glimpse of what those new bodies will be like, it should be enough to know that “we shall be like him.”

Unless Christ comes first, your body will be buried. Like a seed is placed in the ground, so your body will be placed in a tomb. And for a season, your soul will be in heaven while your body is in the grave. But the seed buried in the earth will blossom in heaven. Your soul and body will reunite, and you will be like Jesus.

FIXING OUR FOCUS

Psalms 73: 1-2 “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.”

A little boy was sitting on a street corner trying to sell his little puppy. A salesman passed the corner each day, and after a week he began to pity the boy who was striving to sell his puppy. The salesman knew the boy didn’t “think big”. He stopped and said, "Son, do you really want to sell this dog?" The boy replied, "I certainly do." "Well you’re never going to sell him until you learn to “think big”. What I mean is, take this dog home, clean him up, doll him up, raise your price, make people think they’re getting something big, and you’ll sell him."

That noon the salesman came by and there was the boy with a puppy that was groomed, perfumed, and beribboned alongside a big sign: TREEMENNDOUS Puppy For Sale--$5,000. The salesman gulped and realized he had forgotten to tell the boy about keeping it simple as well. That evening he stopped by to tell the boy the other half of the formula, only to discover that the boy was gone, the puppy was gone and the sign lay there with "SOLD" written across it in big letters.

The salesman couldn’t believe it. This kid couldn’t have sold the dog for $5,000. His curiosity got the best of him and he rang the boy’s doorbell. The boy came to the door and the salesman blurted, "Son you didn’t really sell that dog for $5,000 now, did you?" The boy replied, "Yes, sir, I did and I want to thank you for all your help." The salesman said, "How in the world did you do it?" The boy replied, "Oh, it was easy. I just took two $2,500 cats in exchange!"

We can sometimes be the creators of our own problems in life. You see, the problem comes when we do not focus on the right things. That boy was looking to sell his puppy, but he was approaching it from the wrong perspective. As soon as he made the dog more attractive, that helped him “sell” the puppy. Think of it this way. If you go shopping for a car, and you see an old, beat-up Yugo with 300,000 miles on it, would you take that car? Of course not. We tend to look at things that way—what we can see, feel, touch, smell, taste. Those are what we give the most importance in our decision making.

So why does it surprise us when our vision constantly trips us up? We tend to take a look around and focus on the wrong things, and as we do so, that tends to bring us down. We start to develop our own little pity party—why aren’t things going my why? Why does so and so get everything they want? Why do bad, sinful people get to do so much, and here I am stuck with nothing? Why do I never get the breaks in life? Why is it that bad things always come into my life? The problem is that we often look at things with earthly eyes, rather than heavenly eyes. We tend to look at things through our own glasses, than with glasses equipped with faith.

We tend to look at our lives, our hardships as evidence that things are going wrong. But sometimes, when things go wrong, it’s because we are doing things right. Consider Job. He was living rightly when everything went wrong—it was his proper perspective that allowed him to not sin against God.

We need to do the same—we need to walk by faith, not by sight. And when the things of this world start to get us down, we need to remember to see things as God sees them. We need to worship him—draw near to him. We need to recognize our sin. And we need to see our security in God.

CHOOSE TO OBEY

Deuteronomy 11:17 “the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today”

Do you have any idea how many choices you make every day? You have to decide to get out of bed, what you will wear, what to eat for breakfast, and on and on the simple choices go. Our lives are filled with an endless run of choices. There are everyday choices like the ones listed. Then there are big-time choices like deciding on your education and career, who you will marry, and where you will live. Then there are the ‘once in a lifetime’ choices that make all the others pale in comparison. In Deuteronomy, God gives us a once in a lifetime kind of choice. “Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse...” Or as Moses later puts it “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live...”

As far as I know everyone wants the good life, they want to be blessed. We want health, happiness, peace, prosperity. We’ve even made these our constitutional rights. There aren’t too many folks who would say “gee, I think being miserable would be so much better.” So why are there so many miserable situations out there? The world promises us so much of the good life. I am reminded of an old credit card commercial that said, “There are things in this world money can’t buy, of course for everything else there’s MasterCard.” (At least until you file for bankruptcy). God warns us about following the way that leads to a calamity, but that is not the most important point. So many people can get caught in the trap of wanting the “good life”, believing that is all the blessing they will ever need. This often demonstrates a failure to understand what life is all about.

God offers us real blessing - real life. So how do we get “the good stuff” - the real blessing that doesn’t turn to ashes? It is really rather simple and very, very difficult at the same time. We must obey God. “The blessing shall be yours, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God” There is a direct correlation between doing things God’s way and receiving God’s promises.

God has instituted certain principles for our lives. These principles are found within scripture. They are a road map to the best life. They lead us into a path of fulfillment. They direct us into a realm of blessing. There is no other way to find the realization of his promises except we live in obedience to him. You may find another way to riches. You may find another way to promotion. But don’t be deceived, accomplishments attained outside of obedience are natural and will pass away. God desires that each of us find life and blessings that are eternal.

The great thing about God’s love is that these promises of life are available to everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you come from – if you obey God, you are choosing life. It is a simple choice that leads to a grand conclusion.