We would all rather receive blessings instead of curses, so we would do well to pay attention to the urgency of today’s reading. This is especially true since it presents a way of thinking that doesn’t match our intuitive preferences: we would rather believe that whenever good things happen, it’s because we deserve it, and that when everything goes wrong, that could never be our fault.

This chapter vividly contrasts blessings and curses, and declares an explicit reason for each. “If you will only obey the voice of the Lord your God, by diligently observing all his commandments that I am commanding you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth; all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, if you obey the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2). And in contrast: “But if you will not obey the Lord your God by diligently observing all his commandments and decrees which I am commanding you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you” (28:15).

The text here pushes hard toward a cause-and-effect understanding, with 14 verses promising blessings for obedience, and 55 verses promising curses for disobedience. This is certainly strong testimony! Yet as absolute as it sounds, we need to recognize that it nevertheless is not quite an absolute. Job knew, and his friends found out, that when bad things happen it doesn’t necessarily mean God is punishing you for being bad. And Jesus taught us that God brings the rain for both the just and the unjust.

The best way to understand this is in terms of motivation. It would be fine for us to do what God says, just because we love the Lord and therefore want to obey. But my heart is often not so pure, and so I don’t always have a pure motivation available. Instead, the thing that will move me today to do what’s right might be the anticipation of blessing: if so, let’s be glad that got me going. And tomorrow the effective motivation might be the recognition that I’ll get myself in trouble if I don’t fulfill my responsibilities: if so, let’s be glad that got me going. Sometimes I need a lot of motivating. There’s a lot of it available in this chapter.

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Teach me obedience, Lord. I am willful and stubborn. I need your grace; I need your word; I need your motivation. Change my heart, O God, and draw me along the narrow road to your righteous kingdom, so that I may learn day by day to become the person that you created me to be.