The Danger
Of
The Blessing of God!
The blessing of God is a good thing. It should be the desire of all Christians to brings God honor and glory. The purpose of life is to make God happy. A usual result of putting a smile on God’s face will be God putting happiness in a Christian’s heart!
When we do things God’s way, we usually obtain godly results! This is not automatic! It is not a law that always happens. God many times has a greater blessing waiting down the road to pour out upon us. Just because we give to God doesn’t mean God has to give to us. God is not a slot machine!
The loss of God’s blessing is a tragedy. It may happen to an individual, to a family, to a church, to a business, and as is shown in the book of II Chronicles , a country! As you read II Chronicles you will notice two things: It is gradual over time, and it all depends on leadership. It happens slowly and is almost unnoticeable. It is this result of not noticing that God is not blessing that leads to the judgment of God falling on the organization. When leaders get right with God and start seeking Him, the organization will follow.
I was in a church one time and God was really blessing! Young people were getting saved. They were serving God and growing in the Lord! They allowed me to go to the Veteran’s Nursing Home and preach and visit the older veterans. God allowed me to prepare some precious people to finish out their lives and go to heaven. Our church was growing, and I could see revival breaking out. This was before the Covid outbreak. When the Covid hit, they isolated the veterans. Most of them died. I am looking forward to seeing them in heaven!
After serving God all my adult life I was starting to see the results of doing things God’s way! Looking back on it now, I see that while God was working bringing the blessing, the devil was working to destroy the good things God was doing.
There were a couple of leading ladies in the church who had a dispute and could not resolve it. Others got involved. We had a church meeting, and the church ended up splitting and many people left. I know that many are not going to church anymore. One good couple ended their marriage. I am sure their children are going to suffer for it. When these things happen, many are hurt.
The blessing of God is a tremendous thing! The danger of the Blessing of God is that many times, we take it for granted and expect it to continue no matter what we do!
During the church problems, I was growing closer to God. God was really opening the Bible to me. I made good friends. I think God was using me. Even though I wasn’t the cause of the problems, I must live with the results!
While a lot of people left the church, I continued to stay. I don’t think it’s right to leave when things are going bad. I think God has me there for a reason to help the pastor and church experience the blessings of God again.
Learning from the blessing of God and now the lack of God’s blessing has helped me in my walk with God. I have learned that God’s blessing on a church, organization, or individual is not automatic. God has also showed me that the battle is still raging!
While the blessings are not automatic, there are some things that burst the blessings and other things that build them!
Blessing Bursters
Sin
The battle over personal sin is a life-long battle that must be fought every day. I know that it is my personal sins that hinder my fellowship with God. When I am sinning, I am taking my little time left and not spending it with God! I would hate to get to heaven and find out I spent more time sinning than I did fellowshipping with my Savior!
My sins place a barrier between God and I! If I continue in sin, God won’t hear my prayers and answer!
Isaiah 59:1-4 “Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear:
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.
For your hands are defiled with blood, and your fingers with iniquity; your lips have spoken lies, your tongue hath muttered perverseness.
None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity.”
Don’t make the mistake of thinking God has to hear and answer your prayers the way you want them answered! Like the blessing of God, it is easy to take God for granted, claim the Bible promises, and ignore His desire to spend time with you!
The activity of sinning will keep you from seeking God and His fellowship!
Self
“It’s not about you!”
One of the misconceptions of the blessing of God is thinking God intends to bless us! God’s purpose is not to bless us! His purpose is to have fellowship with us! The blessing is just a result of God’s presence in our lives.
It is easy to get your eyes off God and on yourself. After all, we all want to be happy and satisfied. It is easy to see problems like stumbling blocks instead of like steppingstones! From our perspective the problem is our perspective! The problem is an opportunity for God to work! I must stop looking at them as my problems.
Ever since God healed me from my fungal infection, I have had troubles and problems. Part of it is my desire to function with poor eyesight and poor health. As a broken vessel, I have had to change a lot to just survive. These struggles have taken a tole on not only me but on my marriage. To be successful, I have had to focus on myself.
As such, my marriage has suffered. I have spent the last few years trying to get my wife and daughter to love me again! Recently, God revealed to me that I am looking at the situation all wrong! I can’t force them to love me. They must do it voluntarily!
I have started looking more at their needs and less at mine. I still love them and want them to be happy. I know that they can only be happy if they are loving and serving God!
Taking my eyes from my needs and putting them on their needs has allowed God to take over, and I am learning it is not about me! While I want God to bless me, His desire is to make me more like Jesus! It’s not about self, it’s about my Savior!
Service
Again, there is a danger in God’s blessing. Your service to Him is a good thing. However, it can become an hinderance when a balance is not maintained between fellowshipping with Him and serving Him! Service may become a drudgery instead of a desire. It is supremely important to look at what you are doing as something you get to do instead of must do. Attitude is everything when it comes to service!
What destroys the blessing of God is when it becomes mundane and expected instead of enjoyable and encouraging. God doesn’t have to bless your efforts. When He does, please understand and appreciate how fragile the blessing of God is and that you have a say so in God’s blessing. The Blessing Bursters are sin, self, and service. Now look at how to maintain and sustain God’s blessing.
Blessing Builders
The blessings of God come and continue when you come to God and continue seeking Him! God judged your sin at Calvary when Jesus paid the penalty for all your sin. While you don’t get judged, you continue to reap for what you do. One of the results of sin is denying the blessing of God! You don’t lose the blessing. You leave them:
Revelation 2:4 “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.”
Stopping
The main reason the blessing stops is because of personal sin. While you can’t control what others do, and can’t control what God does, you can influence God and others by stopping your sinning. While you may never be sinless in this life, you do have the power to sin less!
Here are two verses that you need to memorize and apply. They will help you to get victory over many of the sins you face daily:
Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”
I Corinthians 10:13 “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”
Both verses have helped me in my battle with sin. Philippians 4:13 has taught me that now that I am saved, I can stop many of the bad habits I developed when I was lost and didn’t and couldn’t get the victory. Because of this verse I was able to stop smoking and biting my nails.
When I was at the Pensacola Bible Institute, I remember having to memorize I Corinthians 10:13 for several of the classes I had. I memorized it for the first one and was glad that I only had to memorize it once but used it several times to “pad” my grade on a test!
Since then, I use this verse daily. When I am tempted to sin, being an outliner, I have developed a little poem or jingle to go with it. I here offer it to you.
First, I will quote the verse. Just quoting the verse gets my mind away from the sin I was planning on committing!
I then repeat the following:
- 1. “…make a way…” (God has promised to “make a way” for me to get victory over the temptation.)
- 2. Look away. (If I am being tempted by something I am looking at I immediately turn my eyes and head in another direction.)
- 3. Pray away. (I will utter a pray to God. This is called a Nehemiah prayer. See Nehemiah 2:4) (If it is a person that I am looking at, I will pray for them that God will help them)
- 4. Say the Way. (If I am talking to someone, I try to present the gospel. If they are a Christian, I will invite them to church)
- 5. Walk away. (Often, I will need to leave the situation.)
- 6. Stay away. (There are many places I need to avoid so that I am not tempted to inter into sin.)
Usually by the time I go through this the temptation to sin is not as strong and I am able to stop sinning! My fellowship with God is unbroken.
Serving
Serving can be a blessing burster, but it is also a blessing builder! It all depends on your attitude. Sometimes serving gets stale and becomes boring since not much is happening. One thing I have found out over the years is that when it looks like nothing is happening, God is busy doing something that I can’t see and am not aware of!
The blessings will come when you don’t just talk, you tell! Blessing come when you don’t just use your lips, but you use your life to bring God glory!
Seeking
I know I live a dull life. To others, I am sure that they think my life is boring! When I tell them I have never been happier, they look at me like I am crazy. I used to sign my letters and emails with “Busy, but Blessed.” While I am still busy and still blessed, God has produced another emotion in me. God has given me a joy that I have trouble describing! I keep thinking it is temporary but wake up every morning with a joy in my heart and an expectation of meeting and walking with God through the day!
One of the things that I have done is look for God in my Bible reading. My prayer life is not one of saying prayers, but of talking and fellowshipping with God during the day. This knowing of God as more than just God but as a Friend has changed my life.
I know there is a danger of taking God and his blessings for granted and hope that I never do this. I also hope that you experience His blessing and continue in it until He takes you home to be with Him forever and continue in the blessings of our great God!
