“This is what the Lord says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt that is not inhabited.
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream, and does not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.”” Jeremiah 17:5-8

Jeremiah gives us the stark, binary choice: we can live either in the poverty of spirit that comes by making our own way in life, or we can live in the prosperity of a life of total trust in our God for all our living. The stark nature of the choice is clear in his use of the words “cursed” and “blessed.”

The choice between a blessing and a curse is the way of God with His people. One need only to read of the word of the Lord from Moses to the children of Israel, the people of God’s own possession, as they prepared to enter the promised rest God had promised to them if they were faithful to Him.

 “See, I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse: the blessing, if you listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, which I am commanding you today; and the curse, if you do not listen to the commandments of the Lord your God, but turn aside from the way which I am commanding you today, by following other gods which you have not known.” Deuteronomy 11:26-28

The danger Moses warns them of is disobedience to God’s clear instructions, which would turn them away from their God. Their choice to refuse their God and to disobey Him did indeed turn them away. By their refusal that generation had gone astray into idolatry instead of the intimacy with their God offered to them.

As a result, they never left the wilderness to enter their promised rest. They lived and died “in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt that is not inhabited.” They never saw true prosperity, the life of intimacy with their God and the prosperity of living only by His leading.

At the end of Deuteronomy we see our God offering that true prosperity to them through Moses yet again: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have placed before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding close to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, so that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them” (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). Initially they responded, but that soon turned back to refusal.

The offer of prosperity by the Lord to His children then is still the offer to His children today. This offer is fully clarified for us in the words of Jeremiah quoted above:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength, and whose heart turns away from the Lord. For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when prosperity comes, but will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, a land of salt that is not inhabited.“

Like Jeremiah’s hearers in that day, we are to live not by our own flesh and initiative, not by our own desires. To do so is rebellion from a heart that turns away from the Lord. Turning away from the Lord is simply trusting in human efforts and initiatives, making fleshly endeavor one’s strength.

Even when the children of Israel were living religiously, they were still doing so in their flesh, still turning away from their God. They tried by human endeavor without pursuing intimacy with their God, without knowing Him deeply and depending on Him fully. Hosea upbraided them with the words of God: “for I (the Lord) delight in loyalty more than sacrifice, and in the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Our God intends to join us into a life of intimate union with Himself by His indwelling Spirit. Jesus lived this life on earth, not by His own effort or initiative but by the indwelling Holy Spirit of God in Him. In so doing He illustrated the new covenant life we are to live by that same indwelling Spirit.

This life of Christ in us is to fully replace our rebellious independence and our fleshly self-dependence. It is no longer we who live, but it is to be Christ Himself Who lives in us to the point that all our living is now Christ’s life and not our own.

By the life of Christ in us by His indwelling Spirit, we come to know the true prosperity Jeremiah promised to all who would live as our God’s true children and His dwelling place on earth. “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose trust is the Lord. For he will be like a tree planted by the water that extends its roots by a stream, and does not fear when the heat comes; but its leaves will be green, and it will not be anxious in a year of drought, nor cease to yield fruit.”

This is a truly prosperous life. It is for us now and it will extend into eternity.