The chapter is about receiving blessings (or not) from God. God, through Moses, had made it very clear of His intention on this matter. Moses concluded in verse 26-28:

See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and the curse, if you do not obey the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way that I am commanding you today, to go after other gods that you have not known. 

For the Israelites who keep the whole commandment, God will bless them with the possession of the land He had promised, a land flowing with milk and honey, a land far better than the fertile and rich land of Egypt. They will grow abundant crops, and the livestock will have no lacking. There will be no lacking for the Israelites, for the Lord had promised to watch over them (v 8-17). God will drive out their enemies and there shall be total peace, for no one will stand against them when God is with them (v 23-25). 

In order to receive these blessings, Moses repeated Deuteronomy 6:4-5 in verse 13 that each of them must:

love the Lord your God, 

and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

Dear brothers and sisters, our God wants to have a loving relationship with us, where we are wholehearted and faithful to Him, as He is wholehearted and faithful to us. He is ever ready to bless us, but we can only receive when we choose to accept His gift of grace. 

This has been so, since the beginning of time, when God blessed Adam and Eve with the garden of Eden, where they enjoyed a perfect land furnished with bountiful goodness. God told them that they can eat of everything, except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for they will surely die if they eat it. The fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil served as a choice given to Adam and Eve to decide if they will truly want to love God. If there was no choice to love, then man will be like robots who are programmed to love. If they truly loved God, they will obey His commandment. In the same way, God has given us His blessings as He had to Adam and Eve, but what prevents us from receiving this blessing is dependent on what our choice will be. Do we choose to obey or walk away from Him and His commandments. 

This is an age-old problem. We walk away from God because we found something “better” than God that we can rely on. We turn to other form of gods for solace. We turn to money, success, materialism, pornography, relationships, you name it, everything under the sun because we think we can find satisfaction and securtiy in those things. We do not trust God enough to be better than these things. We rather rely on ourselves, our logic, and our scientific mind alone. The anxiety from when we choose to not be in control and leave our lives to God is unbearable. It was easier to choose to take things in our own hands. But we must know, this might not bring about the best outcome in life. 

Moses tells us that blessings comes naturally when we respond in love to God by obeying His commandments. That is why Jesus reminds us that He is the true vine, and we are the branches. If we remain in Him and He in us, we will bear much fruit; apart from Jesus, we can do nothing. When we are plug to the source, blessings pour out into our lives. The question is, brothers and sisters, would you say no to the other small gods in your live and turn to great and mighty Yahweh God, and love God wholeheartedly with all our heart and soul. What choice would you make today?

Prayer: Help us God to love you wholeheartedly. Help us to turn away from our spiritual blindness and trust in You, and You alone. In Jesus name we pray, amen.