Seen to be a blessing Deuteronomy 28:1-3

When I was growing up, my parents showed their pride in my siblings and me by putting our good grades up on the refridgerator.  Nowadays, you see the parents demonstrate their pride by posting bumperstickes.  My child is an honor student.  My child is a student of the month.  My child goes to college.  My child is in the Armed Forces.

That's exactly what God wants to do with us.  God wants us to live in his blessing here on Earth.  The way that we receive that blessing is by living according to God's commands.  God also wants the people around us to see what a blessed life it is when we live according to God's commands.  He wants to show us off.

The trouble that the Israelites had and and that we have is that we many times prefer to be like everybody else.  Rather than doing what the Bible tells us we should do or rather than listening to our conscience, we do "what everybody else is doing".  We prefer to be conformed to the world rather than be transformed by God.  God's call is for His people to be a holy people, a people set apart.  People should be able to see that there is something different about us Christians.  We believe that there is one true God.  We believe that there is an absolute truth.  We believe that we are to conform to God's Law and be subject to the governing authorities.  We live our life as a life of love- loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves.  We do this not so that we can be saved, but so that we can avoid a lot of the traps and landmines that can harm us if we do not obey God's Law.

The result of living according to God's Law is that we will be blessed and the people will see it.  As tired as I sometimes get of people calling the church to ask for money for food, gas, rent, utilities..., I know that there is a reason that they are asking the church.  We stand out as a people who want to help and who are motivated by the love of God to help God's people.  We may have our own difficulties.  But we are always a people blessed by God to be a blessing.  As God's people in the city, God put a bumpersticker on us that says Blessed by God to be a blessing to others.