Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

“It shall happen, because you listen to these ordinances and keep and do them, that Yahweh your God will keep with you the covenant and the loving kindness which he swore to your fathers. He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your new wine and your oil, the increase of your livestock and the young of your flock, in the land which he swore to your fathers to give you. You will be blessed above all peoples. There won’t be male or female barren among you, or among your livestock. Yahweh will take away from you all sickness; and he will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, on you, but will lay them on all those who hate you.”
(Deuteronomy 7:12-15)

“For the upright will dwell in the land.
    The perfect will remain in it.
But the wicked will be cut off from the land.
    The treacherous will be rooted out of it.”
(Proverbs 1:7)

Following directly on the heels of the Israelites paying attention and doing what God told them to do (the instructions He is giving them here), BLESSING follows. When they are in that BLESSING zone, God gives them the power – He enables them – to get wealth. The word for wealth there is ‘chayil’ and it includes the ideas of food, physical health, military ability, business success, and reputation. It is an ALL-ENCOMPASSING word. This isn’t something they got by themselves. They were heading into an invincible land (or nearly so) that was full of strong inhabitants. By God’s FAVOUR, they could do this. It was NEVER physical strength or mental prowess that was going to win the day. The determining factors of success or failure was their decision to humbly submit and obey what God was saying and the faithfulness of God to His covenant with their forefathers. Their obedience didn’t MAKE God move for them, but BLESSING doesn’t chase the heels of the ungodly.

The righteous get to keep what has been given to them. Not hoard it – because we bless others with what we have been blessed with. But we get to INHABIT the promises. We get to KEEP the promises. We get to EXPERIENCE the promises. We get to EAGERLY EXPECT the fulfillment of the promises. The wicked don’t get that. The ungodly don’t get that. No matter WHAT they build, create, take, or possess; it is NOT guaranteed to them. It is NOT promised to them. And when God moves, they fall away. They lose what they think was theirs forever. Only God gives lasting success. Only God can provide BLESSING. If we stay facing Him, He’ll always be able to drop it right into our arms. If we turn away, He can’t give it to us because WE will have rejected BLESSING when we turned away and rejected HIM.

Summary

God has a BIG yard. And inside it are MANY things. ALL of those things are GOOD. Good in and of themselves and good for us. There is NOTHING bad there. No sickness. No disease. No shame. No failure. No bad things. It is the BLESSING zone and it is FULL of His goodness. To stay there, we rest in Jesus. To stay there, we humbly submit to His point of view. To stay there, we worship Him and put Him first place in our lives. To stay there, we obey Him. We rely on Him. HE becomes our Source – of health, of money, of employment, of business acumen, of knowledge, of wisdom, of parenting skills and advice, etc. Whatever we need, HE is the Source. We’re enabled to get it because we’re empowered to obey. It’s THAT simple. He watches over His OBEDIENT children. If we run away doing our own thing, our own way, in our own strength; that isn’t a HIM problem but an US choice. He warns us not to. He shows us His goodness and His glory. We need to make the RIGHT choice and STAY IN THE YARD.