Taking a biblical look at blessings.

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But the Lord said to him, "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name." - Acts 9: 15-16 (ESV)

There is a Bible verse that says a little leaven ruins the whole lump. That it does not take much to go throughout the entire batch. That highlights the critical nature of being vigilant about our faith and guard our doctrine carefully. The Apostle Paul said our very lives depend upon it. I know many people who seemed profoundly rooted in solid doctrine only to fall away and into chasing all sorts of myths. Then there are others who follow heretical and false teachings without even realizing it. The great apostasy warned about in Scripture is well underway in the American church system today. While many of the false theologies are easy to spot and debunk biblically, there are also currents of leaven running through all teachings that threaten to ruin the whole batch if not recognized and dealt with. One of the most prevalent is the false notions of "blessing."

There is a Latin expression called quid pro quo, which means "something for something." This is what much of modern Christianity has devolved into. It is not just the prosperity hucksters like Mike Murdoch and Kenneth Copeland. It is not just the word faith heretics like Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer. It is not just the sheep-abusing false tithing teachers like Robert Morris and Perry Noble. It is not just the purpose driven fanatics like Rick Warren and Andy Stanley, who recently preached that it really is not a big deal if you do not believe Christ was the Son of God. Even though people such as this are defrauding and deceiving millions, skipping merrily down the broad path that leads to destruction, they are also not alone when it comes to turning God into a genie in a bottle. I see it and hear from many good pastors as well. Far too often scripture and life circumstances seem to come back to the Christian common denominator - blessing. The problem is that this word has become synonymous with material increase. Consider the words of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, writing from the prison where he would eventually be executed by the Nazi regime:

"Blessing means laying one's hand on something and saying: Despite everything, you belong to God."

That is a far cry from a new car or being promoted. Inevitably at this point someone will ask me if I believe God wants to prosper us. My answer has evolved over the years as I go deeper into His Word. Now I believe that if you are asking that question then the answer is no. If your focus is on what you get in return then my estimation is you have missed the true point of Christianity. You have already missed the true blessing:

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-- but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Romans 5: 6-8 (ESV)

This is the blessing of God upon humanity. That He would sacrifice His only Son for our eternal blessings. Can't we have eternal blessings and temporal? Sure it is possible but that does not mean it is a guarantee beloved. Sometimes the promotion does not come. Sometimes the mortgage gets foreclosed on. Sometimes our dreams of extravagance end up in lives of moderate commonality. "Oh no preacher not me! My pastor says I am the head and not the tail! That I am more than a conqueror in Jesus name!" OK, let's see what those verses really mean:

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. - Romans 8: 31-37 (ESV)

You see it is a little more than simply saying we are more than conquerors. There is context that explains what God is actually saying and it has nothing to do with material prosperity. Even the stand alone verse starts with - "In all these things"" What things? In all the things trying to separate us from Christ! Tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword. In all of those things that try to separate us from Christ - we are more than conquerors through Jesus Christ! Here is how Gill's Exposition of the Bible says it:

"we are more than conquerors; not only over sin and Satan, but the world, the reproaches, afflictions, and persecutions of it; which they cheerfully and courageously undergo, insomuch that they are not only conquerors, but "more than conquerors": they have above overcome, they have exceedingly the better of it; for they not only patiently bear afflictions and persecutions, but they glory in them; their experience, faith, and joy, are often increased by them; they have sometime solicited, and even wearied their persecutors; they have got the victory with ease, over Satan and his hellish emissaries, by the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony: but this is not owing to themselves"

One of the easiest temptations Satan uses is greed beloved. It was even the final temptation he tried on Christ Himself! So ironically when pastors are selling earthly greed by using the "more than conquerors" verse they not only miss the mark but they are diametrically opposed to what God actually meant! What about the head and not the tail verse?

The Lord will open to you his good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. And you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you shall only go up and not down, if you obey the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them. - Deuteronomy 28: 12-14 (ESV)

These verses come from the end of the Torah. The end of the Mosaic Law. These are promises of material blessing for the nation of Israel but there is a caveat! They must keep the entire law. That means all 613 Mosaic laws if they are to "cash in" on those first 14 verses of blessings. What you friendly neighborhood false teacher won't tell you however is that the next 53 verses are the curses for disobedience! He also neglects to remind you that no one could keep this covenant, which is why God had to send His only Son to begin with! Christ is the real blessing! Is that what is celebrated though on Sundays across this land? The finished work of Calvary? Or are you hearing this:

"If you will stay in faith, God will rain down His favor, His healing, His blessing." - Joel Osteen

"God's blessings crown your head, O righteous one (see Prov 10:6)! His healing, bountiful provisions and protection are upon you and your household!" - Joseph Prince

These two quotes epitomize what is so wrong right now in American Christianity. You cannot speak these as absolutes. It is absurd to do so. We can stay in the faith and God may not rain down His favor and blessing. Do we realize that? Or maybe His favor and blessing are not what we think they should be. The Bible says God gave Joseph success in the house of Potiphar for example but he still remained a slave! I would wager that very few of us would deem that being personally prospered! Then Joseph got thrown in prison for taking a righteous stand against Potiphar's wife! He stayed there for ten years! How does that sound Pastor Prince for a crown of blessings? The Bible again says that God gave Joseph success and favor while in prison but in prison he remained. For over a decade for something he did not do. When he finally came out he sought no retribution towards so many who had wronged him temporally because he understood things from an eternal perspective:

But Joseph said to them, "Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. - Genesis 50: 19-20 (ESV)

God would eventually prosper Joseph materially as well. So the lesson is not that it can't happen. Just that it does not have to happen. That everyone has their own walk and sometimes the very thing we wish so hard for is the very thing that keeps us from Jesus. The rich young ruler's problem was not that he was rich. It was that he loved money more than he loved God. We are raising a generation of churchgoers who will never say that out loud but whose actions admit it every week. Who follow men that promise them that God is just a blessing machine, there to throw open the windows of heaven over them!

But what about our Christian brothers and sisters around the world? What about the starving and impoverished in third world countries? Have they not "stayed in the faith"; Pastor Osteen? Is not the same crown of righteousness upon their head? What about the persecuted Christians in China and the martyred Christians in Iraq? Where are their bountiful provisions? Why is their healing not raining down? Beloved, do not fall for the quid pro quo Christianity that says everything is about the next blessing. The reason why these brothers and sisters stay in even stronger faith in even more dire circumstances is that they place their trust in what God has already done! Not what He might do tomorrow. What does Jesus teach?

Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them, "Truly, I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfoldand will inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. - Matthew 19: 27-30 (ESV)

Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul? - Matthew 16: 24-26 (ESV)

When Peter points out what they have lost temporally Jesus does not promise him a new car. What our inheritance really is resides in our eternal life. Our eternal position in Christ. We think so small when we pine away for the trinkets of this world. But you will not hear these verses preached on Sundays anymore. That we are actually supposed to deny ourselves? Pick up our cross to follow Christ? The way most pastors today preach it is Christ that follows us.

Beloved. I am not saying that God wants us all poor. I am not saying that blessings cannot contain material wealth to them. I am just saying God is not obligated to bless as such and that sometimes, our path may not be so temporally blessed. Consider the Apostle Paul and our key verses today. This is right after God had saved him on that Damascus road. He is now blind and waiting for Ananias to come and restore his sight. But Ananias objects and the response from God is staggering in its brutal honesty for what lie ahead in the life of Paul. I will show him how much he must suffer for my name! God was not just grandstanding either:

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one.Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? - 2Corinthians 11: 24-29 (ESV)

So my question for us today is what if this was the offer to us from God? No windows of heaven pouring out so much blessing that we cannot contain it, pressed down, running over into our laps. No, instead it was - I will show you how much you must suffer for my name! Shipwrecked. Left adrift at sea. Robbers, false brothers, toil, hardship, sleepless nights, beaten with rods, nearly stoned to death. Without food. Out in the cold. Exposed to the elements. I will show you how much you must suffer for my name! Would Calvary be enough? Would His shed blood be enough? Would the nail pierced hands and feet be enough? Would the spear in His side be enough? Would the scourging be enough? Would Calvary be enough?

I am not going to pretend to be some plaster saint. I pray for material blessing just as much as the next person. I try however to remember that if He gives me nothing else from this moment until the moment He takes me home, He has already given me everything. I have already been immeasurably blessed. His salvation is what was poured down upon me from the open windows of heaven. It is His salvation that is pressed down and running over into my lap. Keep your blessing leaven ruining the whole batch. I am blessed. I have been blessed. I am eternally blessed. Calvary is enough.

Reverend Anthony Wade - February 25, 2015

Authors Bio:
Credentialed Minister of the Gospel for the Assemblies of God. Owner and founder of 828 ministries. Vice President for Goodwill Industries. Always remember that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.