Deuteronomy 28 is amazing; it’s about as awesome as Deuteronomy 27 is terrifying. Check this out:
“If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God… The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands.”
In John chapter 3 we read that “[God] gives the Spirit without measure.”
And yet, how often am I satisfied with scraps from the table of pietistic religiosity and the anemic fruit of moral effort? How readily have I been satisfied with a good parking spot when all along God has desired to bless all the work of my hands?
And yet, what is required to receive this overflowing abundance is all of me: surrendered in obedience.
“…the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:19-21)
It occurred to me that “wicked things” can also be religious work done in my own effort; strategic plans for good and upright attempts to live well in my own strength are still “the work of darkness” (the evil of pride and self-sufficiency).
Whatever I do that has not been “carried out in God” is not a work of the light.
This surrender to the Light is daily, always-kind-of-stuff, like breathing… when living life in the Spirit, it’s really non-negotiable. Dwelling and abiding in Christ (hearing and obeying God’s voice) opens the treasury of heaven above me: and I begin to hear the rumble of heavy rain in the distance.