Big Idea - How do you make sure a blessing stays a blessing? After over four hundred years, the children of Abraham are finally receiving the land promised to Abraham. It is described as a land flowing with milk and honey, which was a picture of a land that truly was blessed with good things in abundance! Joshua and the people have now experienced two complete victories, and there is much to celebrate. Now, they travel some distance to Mt. Gerizim to announce the blessings and curses of their covenant with God in a dramatic ceremony. The point of all this is that the Promised Land would only be a blessing if they remained faithful to the covenant; if they did not keep the covenant, it would be a land of curse, and there was the risk of losing the land altogether. God's gifts are intended to be a tremendous blessing, but God's gifts can turn into a curse if we are not careful! The land was a wonderful gift, but the real blessing was God Himself, and not just the land they could call home. We live under a new covenant in Christ, but we need to keep in mind the same lesson taught here. The gifts of God are a blessing only if we are faithful to Him. How do we make sure we do not miss the blessing of the blessing?

First, we must come to the altar of worship where we celebrate God's gift of atonement and forgiveness, and through that we enjoy true fellowship with Him and live life in His presence. Second, we are to walk in obedience to His commands. This does not mean doing good works to earn His blessing. Nor is it a matter of doing the right things, so that God will give you all the things you want or need. Instead, the idea is that God has blessed them ultimately with a life with Him. He is the greatest blessing of all. The commands are given to show how they can walk with God and enjoy Him in uninterrupted fellowship. In short, how to love Him, and as they love Him, how to then love each other. That is the greatest blessing of all, and without Him all the treasures of the world can only be a curse. Thirdly, we must trust in the Lord alone as the one and only God who is the source of all things and who alone can give us true joy and blessing. The covenant was based on God's promises and the people's faithfulness to follow the covenant conditions. Who would not want all these blessings, and who would choose the curses? And yet, Israel chose the curses by turning away from God over and over until they lost the promised land and suffered all the curses spelled out here! Why would they do that? Only two explanations are possible. One is that they were stupid. Or, they didn't really believe God was enough. They were not lacking intelligence, but they were lacking faith. In practice, they thought that God was one source of blessing, but not the only source. They came to believe that they were missing out on blessings, protection, and good things that other gods could give them, that the God of Abraham could not. So, they worshipped Yahweh, Baal, and any number of other gods. But the God of all creation is the God of every good and perfect gift. He is God alone, and everything ultimately comes from Him, good and bad! We live under a new covenant in Christ. And under the new covenant, every blessing comes to us because Jesus kept the commands perfectly. And all of our failures, rebellion, and sin that brings on us the curse of death, Jesus Himself bore on the cross. So, in Christ, we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. There is no condemnation, no curse under the new covenant. But that does not mean that it is impossible for us to miss out on the blessing of the blessings. All of God's good gifts in our lives will cease to be a blessing to us when we love the gifts of God more than we love the gift-giver, when we trust in God's gifts to bring us joy rather than God Himself, when we fail to see that the only true blessing is life with God, and substitute anything else in His place by thinking that we will only be truly happy when we have God and anything else. The secret to a life where we can truly enjoy all the blessings of God is when we love and enjoy God above all else, and trust in Him as the only source of all that we need to live and be happy.