March 21

One would think that receiving God’s blessings would result in a desire to continue being obedient and faithful to Him. One would think that intelligent people would see the correlation between disobedience to God and the curses that follow, and obedience to God and the blessings that follow. One would think that given the choice between receiving God’s blessings or receiving God’s curses, that people would choose God’s blessings. Indeed, God’s blessings are given to those who follow Him as a means of encouraging their continued faithfulness and evoking love for the One who is so good to them (Romans 2:4). And one would think that we would see how this pattern has played out in the past and learn from it (Romans 15:4). But, we don’t! Instead, we make the same foolish decisions as those who have gone before us. Once we’ve received God’s blessings, we tend to forget the hand of the One who has blessed us.
In his Proclamation of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln said of the United States of America, "We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were pro-duced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us!"
Moses had earlier warned the Israelites before they entered into the Promised Land, “beware that in your plenty you do not forget the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 8:11-18). Israel had a history of turning to God and then turning from God. In a song that Moses sang to the Israelites, he said, “But Israel soon became fat and unruly; the people grew heavy, plump, and stuffed! Then they abandoned the God who had made them; they made light of the Rock of their salvation” (Deuteronomy 32:15). “Israel is a nation that lacks sense; the people are foolish, without understanding” (32:28). Unfortunately, what was true of Israel has also been true of the United States. And what was true of these two great nations of people is also true of most of us as individuals. We just don’t seem to learn from the past, and we don’t seem to learn from our own experiences.
The words we receive from scripture are more than just good advice. As Moses said, “These instructions are not mere words - - they are your life!” (32:47). Might we posses the wisdom to obey God’s Word and enjoy the blessings and long life He has repeatedly promised if we do.