Serving God with Joy and Gladness

I remember years ago hearing John Piper quote this verse in one of his sermons, and today I came across it again in Deuteronomy. It is one worth reading a few times and meditating on:

"Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joy and with a glad heart, for the abundance of all things; therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you." Dt. 28:47-48

A couple points to draw your attention to:

• This is an understatement, but one that is needs to be said: Serving God is to be accompanied with joy and gladness.
• Serving God is not just a duty to be done, but a joy to be experienced. Attitude matters. Motivation matters. The service; the work; the action itself is not the point.
• Abundance and prosperity are to be rejoiced in as the gifts of God. God is not looking for his people to be cold-hearted asectics, but warm-hearted, happy people who when the tummy is full, the kids are runnning around, the wife and husband are hand-in-hand, and the pocketbook is bulging the glory goes to God and it does so manifestly. Thankfulness to God for his abundance and blessing should be on the lips of a prosperous people. The flip-side of course is also true: when times are tough the heart is still to sing. (One last point to this point, to be robustly biblical, isn't it also true that sometimes when God makes people fat with abundance that itself is its own kind of judgment.)
  
• If God's people are not happy in abundance and serving Him with gladness with all that they have, sometimes God sends lack.
• Joy and gladness are the mark of the people of God, not grumbling and complaining. The Israelites, especially as seen in the book of Numbers, were a grumbling and complaining people. I, at times, am not different. This verse is a rebuke to my soul.
• Serving God and obedience to God is not to be perceived as an "iron yoke." Service and obedience is for joy of one's soul. The "iron yoke" is given to a people who in their service and in their abundance are not glad. The service of God by the people of God are to be done in the relationship with a Father who loves them and knows what's best for them, not as being under a hard and rugged taskmaster.
  
• This verse means the way in which I serve God matters very much.