Heart and Soul

“When all these blessings and curses I have set before you come upon you and you take them to heart wherever the LORD your God disperses you among the nations, and when you and your children return to the LORD your God and obey him with all your heart and with all your soul according to everything I command you today, then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes and have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where he scattered you. Even if you have been banished to the most distant land under the heavens, from there the LORD your God will gather you and bring you back. He will bring you to the land that belonged to your fathers, and you will take possession of it. He will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. The LORD your God will put all these curses on your enemies who hate and persecute you. You will again obey the LORD and follow all his commands I am giving you today. Then the LORD your God will make you most prosperous in all the work of your hands and in the fruit of your womb, the young of your livestock and the crops of your land. The LORD will again delight in you and make you prosperous, just as he delighted in your fathers, if you obey the LORD your God and keep his commands and decrees that are written in this Book of the Law and turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deuteronomy 30:1-10)

When folks are wanting to poke fun at God, and question whether the Word is viable and applicable for us today, in all the brilliance of our 21st century enlightenment, a couple of the places they like to go are to Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

These two books are full.

Full of a lot of good stuff.

But full of a lot of stuff we just don’t get anymore.

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That doesn’t invalidate the Word so much as it just puts the spotlight on how much we don’t get. But there’s really, really good stuff there, and it still works just as well as it ever did. That’s kind of how God made His Word to work. So it would still be with us and effective even when we acquired what sometimes seems like too much knowledge for our own good.

In Deuteronomy 30, Moses is giving what you might call his farewell address to the Israelites. They are preparing to enter the land God promised to them. For reasons maybe we’ll get into some other day, after leading the people out of Egypt and through the wilderness, he lost his chance to go with them across the Jordan.

He’s given them the law, preparing them for their new life in the new land. The preceding chapters go into intricate detail about issues like what to do about a brother’s ox or donkey that fell on the road, and how to build your roof to prevent you from having guilt if someone falls off it and dies. About what kind of fabrics you couldn’t wear together, and why it was important to carry a shovel along when you walked outside the camp at night to relieve yourself. About using honest weights and measures, of treating hired help properly, and setting aside a portion of your produce to help care for the priests, widows and orphans.

There’s a lot of detail.

A lot of it makes sense, and a lot of it we just don’t get. 

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But as we near chapter 30, Moses gives some other specifics that are easier to understand, and harder to poke fun at. He’s very clear about what happens when we obey, and what happens when we don’t. He spells out the blessings and the curses, respectively, in Chapter 28.

If we choose to obey, we’ll be blessed.Blessed all over the place. We’ll be blessed inside and outside. Going in and coming out. Our enemies will be defeated. Even our baskets and kneading troughs will be blessed.

And then he outlines the curses, which amount to pretty much the blessings in excruciating reverse.

And none of the curses look too good.

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So, starting in chapter 30, where I’m trying hard to get to today, Moses takes the detail, pulls it together and draws the big picture.

When all this happens, when the blessing and curse do their work to persuade to you to return to God and follow Him, he says that then God will restore you. He’ll have compassion and bring you back from the ends of the earth, where you have been scattered. You’ll come back to the land that was promised to your fathers, and you’ll possess it.

He will make it your own.

And then the curses will go back on your enemies instead of on you. And the blessings will be poured out, will be lavished on you. Because you have returned to God, because you have acknowledged Him, because you have desired Him again and have chosen to obey Him.

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Now, it really all boils down to this thing he keeps saying in these verses, this phrase he keeps using: with all your heart and with all your soul.

You will return to God and obey Him with all your heart and with all your soul.

You will love God with all your heart and with all your soul.

You will turn to God with all your heart and with all your soul. 

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We’ve been scattered to the ends of the earth, we’ve run as far from Him as we can get. But He says He wants to give us our land back. He wants us to possess our territory again. He wants to restore us. He loves us with all His heart and all His soul, and He’ll do anything to get us to see that we need to come back.

He’ll even let us suffer under the curse.  

God doesn’t want much.

He wants it all.

Everything we’ve got.

Heart. Soul. All of it.

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And that’s when He will bless us with everything He’s got, when we give Him everything we’ve got. He won’t hold back.

But then neither can we. No going part way. “Yeah, I think if I can get enough of this kind of blessing, I can offset that kind of curse and then it’ll all balance out in the middle.” Doesn’t work that way. The curses are too devastating. The blessings are too immense. And they don’t come together.

It’s not a package deal.

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God asks for my whole heart. My whole soul.

So when the curse does its work and drives me back to Him, my whole heart and my whole soul is what He gets.

And then He starts pouring.

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