Welcome back y’all! In the last post, I wrote about some things that sin is keeping you from because sin prevents a relationship with God. Now, here is the rest! But even with this additional post, I know that there are many more promises and blessings that sin keeps you from. So, it is essential that you read your Bible and cultivate a relationship with God so that you can find out what else you’re missing in your life.
Peace
One thing that I know for sureeee is that a relationship with God brings you peace! It is so easy to worry and stress about the things in life but when you have God, He got you! Isaiah 26:3 reads, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You because he trusts in You“. So, in this verse the prophet, Isaiah is letting us know that when your mind has stayed on God and you trust in Him, you will have perfect peace. Not just regular peace but perfect peace meaning that there is absolutely nothing in your life that you won’t have peace about. God got it all because you’re mind is stayed on Him and also just trusting that God has it all figured out, gives you peace as well. Now here is the flip side; when you’re living in sin, your mind is not stayed on God, but rather on the flesh. So, you disqualify yourself from having peace from God. Furthermore, you’re most likely to sin because you don’t trust God to fulfill your needs. If you’re into stealing, you don’t trust God to provide for you, if you’re into drinking, you don’t trust God to lift your anxieties, if you’re fornicating, you don’t trust God to get rid of that lustful spirit and show you love that a body can’t. If you trusted God 100%, you wouldn’t fall into sin. Romans 8:6 reads, “for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace”. So, through living in sin, you are destroying your life on your own. Keeping your mind stayed on God is being spiritually minded, and God promises life and peace when are spiritually-minded. And life, meaning, that abundant life that Jesus speaks of in John 10:10, a life that is filled with God’s glory and absolutely nothing less. So, really think about how much you are mindful of God, the more mindful you are of Him, the more mindful He is of you.
Protecting your Finances
If you feel that your money is going all over the place, you need to examine a few things. First, does your sin require money? This could be money for alcohol, weed, condoms, going out to wild parties, porn etc. Sin charges your pockets sometimes. Second, do you trust God with your finances through tithing? Many Christians actually don’t tithe, and do you know that is actually wrong not to tithe? Malachi 3:10-11 says, “bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house, and try me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, ‘if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it and I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes”. So, the most important thing to note about this verse is that, if you tithe, God will shower you with blessings from heaven and He’ll keep your finances safe from the enemy. Now, if you’re living in sin, I doubt you’re tithing and if you are, as I mentioned many times now, God doesn’t reward bad behavior. So, if you’re not seeing the windows of heaven open in your life, it’s because you’re living a life that God can’t reward because He knows the money is going to go towards your sin. God can only give you but so much in life when you’re living in sin, He cannot fully bless you the way He wishes. Additionally, there isn’t much rebuking of the devourer God can do if you’re already spending your money on your sin, you’re throwing your own money down the drain. So, what I want you to take from this is to tithe with a sincere heart, not just to appear like you’re a good Christian. Secondly, stop spending your money on your sin and put it towards God, so you can experience the windows of heaven being poured out in your life.
Protection from Failure
Being right with God serves so many benefits, it also keeps you from failure. Psalm 37:23-24 says, “the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand”. So, when you’re living “ordered by the Lord”, God keeps you from falling and from utter failure. He helps you and gives you another chance if you do stumble. God does this because He sees that you are living for Him and that you care about His input in your life. So, when God sees a person with a sincere heart towards Him, He takes it upon Himself to make sure they don’t fail because He delights in him. God wants that person to prosper and will help them to do so because He appreciates and loves the fact they care about being guided by the Lord. However, on the flip side, when you’re living in sin, your steps aren’t ordered by the Lord because if they were, you wouldn’t be in sin. Furthermore, when you are in sin, it shows that you don’t care about having your life ordered by the Lord. Therefore, God is not obligated to uphold you with His hand because He is not delighted in your ways. You are causing yourself to fall when you’re living in sin and there is nothing that God can do about that until you decide to live a righteous life. God can’t help you out of a place you put yourself in if you don’t decide to reach out to Him. So, if you want God’s help and protection from failure, you must live righteously and start asking for God for guidance. When God isn’t guiding your life, that leads to failure on its own.
Favor
Last but certainly not least is the favor that is granted when you’re living a righteous life. Psalm 23:5-6 says, “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”. Again, when you’re living a righteous life and dwelling in the house of the Lord, as David mentions, God is not afraid to bless you publically and also make sure that good things follow you. As Christians, we should expect goodness and mercy to be a part of our daily lives as we live for Christ. As we put God first and above our sin, God will let everyone know, even our enemies that He is with us and that we are blessed. And not only are we blessed but our cup runs over, meaning we have an abundance. God is the God of more than enough and He is willing to provide that for everyone who delights in His Word and ways. The most important part to note in this verse is that David says that he will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So, because God has blessed him, and has charged for goodness and mercy to follow him, David decided that he will be in the presence of the Lord forever. However, when you are in sin, you cannot dwell in the house of the Lord. Sin does not invite the presence of the Lord but rather rejects it, so the things promised in this verse cannot be yours if you’re living in sin.
“for You, O Lord, will bless the righteous; With favor, You will surround him as with a shield”
Psalm 12:5
Moving along, Psalm 5:12, says “for You, O Lord, will bless the righteous; With favor, You will surround him as with a shield”. When you are righteous God once again promises to bless you but also to surround you with His favor. For me, when it says as with a shield I imagine that God protects the righteous with His favor. Because of this, Christians are exempt from the struggles and worries of life. We have God’s favor so we should expect and experience the goodness and mercy that David spoke of, in our everyday lives. God’s favor makes our case different, what happens to other people, doesn’t happen to you, what didn’t work out for one person, works out for you. All because you have God’s favor surrounding your life on every side. This should be motivation to live righteous because God’s favor includes a lot of things. It includes the windows of heaven being opened in your life, safety in unsafe situations, goodness and mercy following you, and so much more. God’s favor is one of the greatest things we get to experience as Christians, but it is only experienced by those who are living for God.
What I want you to take from this post is that you need to examine your life and your dedication to God. How devoted are you to Him? And that should be answered by examining the sin or lack of it in your life. The more dedicated you are to God, the less likely you are to sin. So, let that be your food for thought today. I hope this helped and God bless!
Leave a comment