Day 13: Do you know the physical benefits of your redemption?

In the previous days we looked at the spiritual blessings that God wants to give us. But our heritage in Christ contains so much more! So let us look now at the physical area. What are the physical benefits that Jesus has purchased for us when He died on the cross on our behalf?

Let us first return to Deuteronomy 28, that great chapter that lists both the blessings for obedience to God and the curses for disobedience. We always have to bear in mind the basic causes for blessings and for curses. It is in listening to the Lord's voice that brings the blessing, not listening to the Lord's voice that brings the curses. This is the principle that runs all through Scripture.

Our whole destiny is ultimately determined by whether we listen to the voice of the Lord and then do what He says. And if we do not listen to His voice, we cannot do what He says. We have to have that living, ongoing personal relationship with the Lord that enables us to hear His voice.

Do you remember what Jesus said in John 10:27? "My sheep hear My voice and they follow Me." That is the mark of true believers in all ages, they hear the voice of Jesus, they follow Him. Hearing brings blessing; not hearing bring curses.

Now we are going to look in Deuteronomy 28 at all the physical curses that result from not hearing and not obeying the voice of the Lord. They are indeed many. I will just briefly recapitulate them. Bear in mind that all these things that they are stated as curses, as things that do not belong to the redeemed people of God.

Verse 21, the Lord says, "The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you..."  Pestilence is a curse.

Verse 22, "The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation..." So consumption, fever and inflammation are curses.

Verse 27 lists the following: boils, haemorrhoids, scabs, and itch. All these things are curses. They should not belong to the redeemed people of God.

Verse 28 lists blindness. Verse 35 speaks of sore boils "...on the knees and the legs, from the sole of your foot to the crown of your head..."

Verse 59 is really amazing in its explicit statement of all the physical disasters that result from disobedience. It says, "then the LORD will bring extraordinary plagues on you and your descendants, even severe and lasting plagues, and miserable and chronic sicknesses."

So many Christians are enduring curses when they should be enjoying blessings. And they are enduring the curses probably for two main reasons, either because they don't know that they are curses or because they don't realize that Jesus delivered us from the curses that we might inherit the blessings. In Galatians 3:13-14, we see that Jesus has become a curse for us, for you, so you might enter into the blessing of God.

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us for it is written, ‘cursed is every one who hangs on a tree » ’- in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”