In Deuteronomy chapter 28, God exhorts all of us to make sure that we are very careful to obey all of His instructions to us. Then He goes on to tell us why that is so important. The extent to which we are obedient to do everything that God instructs us to do will literally shape our lives. This is true for every single one of us. There are no exceptions. This is the single most important factor that determines the quality of our lives. Nothing else even comes close.

If we are diligent to obey God’s instructions, we will experience amazing and wonderful benefits that are detailed in Deuteronomy 28, verses 3 through 14.The benefits are so wonderful that they may seem better than anything we could even imagine!

These verses were originally written to people who made their living off of land and livestock, but these blessings apply just as much to every area of our lives today!

“Make sure you obey the Lord your God completely. Be careful to obey all his commands. I’m giving them to you today. If you do these things, the Lord will honor you more than all the other nations on earth. If you obey the Lord your God, here are the blessings that will come to you and remain with you.

“You will be blessed in the cities. You will be blessed out in the country. Your children will be blessed. Your crops will be blessed. The young animals among your livestock will be blessed. That includes your calves and lambs. Your baskets and bread pans will be blessed. You will be blessed no matter where you go. Enemies will rise up against you. But the Lord will help you win the battle over them. They will come at you from one direction. But they’ll run away from you in every direction. The Lord your God will bless your barns with plenty of grain and other food. He will bless everything you do. He’ll bless you in the land he’s giving you. The Lord your God will make you his holy people. He will set you apart for himself. He promised to do this. He promised to do it if you would keep his commands and live exactly as he wants you to live.

**“**All the nations on earth will see that you belong to the Lord. And they will be afraid of you. The Lord will give you more than you need. You will have many children. Your livestock will have many little ones. Your crops will do very well. All of that will happen in the land he promised to give you. He promised this to your people of long ago.

“The Lord will open up the heavens. That’s where he stores his riches. He will send rain on your land at just the right time. He’ll bless everything you do. You will lend money to many nations. But you won’t have to borrow from any of them. The Lord your God will make you leaders, not followers.

“Pay attention to his commands that I’m giving you today. Be careful to obey them. Then you will always be on top. You will never be on the bottom. Don’t turn away from any of the commands I’m giving you today. Don’t turn to the right or the left. Don’t follow other gods. Don’t worship them.”—Deuteronomy 28:1-14 (NIRV)

If that sounds like Heaven on Earth, it should, because that is exactly what God wants to give us! Jesus even taught us to pray this!

“Your kingdom come, Your will be done **on earth as it is in heaven.”—**Matthew 6:10 (AMPC)

However, if we do not diligently obey the instructions that God has given us, we will have unnecessary problems in life. These problems are signals from God. The main purpose of these problems is to prompt us to reevaluate our lives and our choices and to make the needed changes in order to come into obedience with God’s instructions.

God is not vindictive or cruel in any way. God is love. He is insistent about us obeying His commands because, as our Creator, He understands what is best for us. He has described the perfect lifestyle in the Bible that will allow us to live wonderful, fulfilling, meaningful lives filled with blessings and good things. To the extent that we deviate from His instructions, we will experience destructive consequences.

God wants to save us and protect us from those destructive consequences, so when we get off course, He has arranged for problems to come into our lives as signals that let us know that we need to make corrections to get back onto the best path for our lives.

This is similar to pain that we feel in our bodies that alerts us that something needs attention and correction. If we didn’t feel pain that alerted us to pull our hands out of a burning fire, we might make the mistake of leaving our hands in the fire until they were destroyed.

In the last several verses of Deuteronomy 28, God tells us exactly what will happen to us if we wander away from the best path for us. These problems that He describes in this chapter seem to be listed in three groups.

If we do not respond to the signals in the first set of problems, then we will experience more severe problems. If we still do not respond to God’s signals, then we will experience the ultimate problems that are God’s last resort to try to get through to us in order to prevent our ultimate destruction.

These consequences work for entire nations, just as they do for us as individuals.

In America, currently we seem to be experiencing verse 52 as our protective borders are taken down, allowing our enemies to invade us and besiege our cities.

“They shall besiege you at all your gates until your high and fortified walls, in which you trust, come down throughout all your land; and they shall besiege you at all your gates throughout all your land which the Lord your God has given you.”—Deuteronomy 28:52 (NKJV)

But Isn’t That the Old Testament?

Many people, even those who call themselves Christians, feel that the Bible’s Old Testament is not relevant to us today. Many Christians believe that the New Testament canceled the Old Testament and that God’s instructions in the Old Testament no longer apply to us.

Jesus Himself refuted this error in His Sermon on the Mount:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”—Matthew 5:17-18 (NIV)

Jesus goes on to tell us how people will be looked upon in God’s heavenly kingdom if they set aside the Old Testament as irrelevant:

“Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”—Matthew 5:19 (NIV)

A few months ago, a Christian leader told me that he was teaching people that tithing (giving 10% of our income to God) is no longer required by God under the New Testament. He had done a lot of study on this, and he felt confident in his conclusions.

Not only is he wrong, but what he is teaching is dangerous. If people believe his teaching, this could lead them into very destructive consequences as we are clearly told in Malachi 3:8-12. I wrote a whole series of articles just on the vital importance of following God’s instructions to give 10% of our income to Him without fail. This will be a major key to surviving and thriving in the dark times that are coming upon us when our lives may depend on whether we choose to serve God or money. Eventually all of us will be forced to choose. Those who choose to serve money rather than God may still be allowed to buy and sell in the coming economy, but in choosing to place their dependence on money rather than God, they may lose their eternal souls. (See Revelation 13:16-17 and Revelation 14:9-11.)

If that Christian leader does not change the error of his teaching, he could forever be relegated to the status of the least in the Kingdom of Heaven … and for good reason!