The Crossroads

The Christian life is intended to be a life lived in the very presence of God.  The intention of God is that we are blessed to be a blessing.  The book of Deuteronomy has a lot to say about the blessings and how this divine favor touches and prospers us in every aspect of our lives.  Whether or not we live the blessed life is entirely up to us.  Each of us face crossroads in our faith – marked by some event, large or small.  These crossroads cause us to make decisions to either live by faith, in obedience to God – or to detour into doubt and disobedience. 
Deuteronomy 30:11-20  The Message
  This commandment that I'm commanding you today isn't too much for you, it's not out of your reach. It's not on a high mountain—you don't have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. And it's not across the ocean—you don't have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it. No. The word is right here and now—as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it!

 Look at what I've done for you today: I've placed in front of you
      Life and Good
      Death and Evil.
 And I command you today: Love God, your God. Walk in his ways. Keep his commandments, regulations, and rules so that you will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.

  But I warn you: If you have a change of heart, refuse to listen obediently, and willfully go off to serve and worship other gods, you will most certainly die. You won't last long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

  I call Heaven and Earth to witness against you today: I place before you Life and Death, Blessing and Curse. Choose life so that you and your children will live. And love God, your God, listening obediently to him, firmly embracing him. Oh yes, he is life itself, a long life settled on the soil that God, your God, promised to give your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

As New Testament believers, we have been grafted in to the family of Abraham.  We are heirs to the promise just as much as the children of Israel.  The Word of God says that if we walk in the Spirit, we will not fulfill the desires of the flesh.  As we choose to deny our doubt and walk in faith; as we take the road less traveled we will walk on a level of life that no one on the face of the earth has access to.  It is only through Christ that we are blessed.  It is only through Christ that we are to be a blessing. 

Christianity has long put the blessing in a box and marked it “open with you get to heaven”.  Christianity has long assumed a false cloak of humility through self-denigration. 

Christianity is actually meant to be a blessed life – why fight it?  The word says in these verses that we who are obedient to the Word “will live, really live, live exuberantly, blessed by God, your God, in the land you are about to enter and possess.”

We are at a major spiritual crossroad today.  Our Father God is calling us to wake up from apathy and misunderstanding about His will for us.  We are to walk in life and that in abundance, just as Jesus said.  We are not to be downtrodden, just hoping we make it to heaven in the “sweet by and by”. 

We are to walk as children of God – in the blessing of the Living God.  There is much to say about this new life in the New Testament letters to the churches.  Yes, we do have many problems to face in this life – after all, the earth is still under the curse of sin.  However, we are not.  We are overcomers in Christ and yet more than that, we are more than conquerors.  We are to live above the curse on a level of blessing that the Spirit of God will reveal to us more and more as we trust and obey and learn more about the true destiny of the children of God.

Be blessed!
Rhonda Roughton
Rhonda is founder of INK Ministries. INK Ministries' mission is to build up the body of Christ through writing, preaching and teaching with an emphasis on the New Covenant and who we are in Christ. "Write down the vision and make it plain on tablets so that whoever reads it may run with it." Habakkuk 2:2-3. This is a "hands-on" ministry as well as a writing ministry - moving in the gifts and power of the Holy Spiit to bring hope, healing and deliverance to all those who hunger for more of Him.