A Devotional Thought From Leviticus

And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and you shall be my people.     Leviticus 26:12

          In the midst of detailed, specific, ancient Old Testament laws, we find this verse expressing the reward of obedience to God. Near the beginning of Leviticus 26 we see this statement, “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; Then will I give you…” (Lev. 26:3,4). God goes on to express a host of blessings that will come to his people when they obey, culminating in this promise that He would be among them and that they would be His people. Obedience to God’s law brings a close relationship with Him that blesses you as an individual and the nation as a people.

          Following this promise God indicates that if the people do not obey Him that bad things, judgments, will come in response to disobedience to His law, though He will never completely forsake His people. Even with our finite minds we can see the logic: obedience to God’s way brings good things, disobedience brings bad things. 

          That principle is always working in the world. Take one modern example: if a nation turns from God’s ideal of faithfulness and purity in marriage and family, they reap broken hearts, broken children, broken society. There is no dispute, the evidence is overwhelming. That one issue has had a major destructive effect on modern Western societies. America and the Western democracies who have, despite their sins and abuses over the centuries, a godly Christian heritage, should be searching the pages of the New Testament for God’s picture of moral living, and having found it, the American people and all the nations of the world with Christian history, should repent of their disobedience and live that picture out in their individual and community lives. It just might save their countries.