“God Wants to Bless You” – Truth and Lies

“God Wants to Bless You” – Truth and Lies

Does God want to bless us? Of course He does! This concept is key to understanding who God is. Some may think, because of His holiness, righteousness, and omnipresence (all-knowing-ness), He is always looking out for our sin so He can judge and condemn us. God is love (1 John 4:8), and if He gave His Son Jesus Christ for those who do not aim to be holy, and worse off, obsessed with sin – against His nature – would He not want the best for us? God truly wants to bless us but we need to acknowledge that His blessings could vary from the blessings we want to obtain. (If God would want everyone to be saved and none to perish -2 Peter 3:9, would He save us just to condemn us again?)

God wants to bless us, but if one only grasps this concept without a rightful balance, it could be meaningless. Knowing God is important, but more importantly, we should strive to know Him rightfully and truly – in the manner He intends us to as His Word has written. Hence, only acknowledging that He wants to bless us, without other crucial aspects of His Divinity, we may not truly know Him. And in a sense, it is similar with forgiveness. Only mentioning God's forgiveness of our debts, without mentioning our forgiveness to those who have indebted us is imbalanced (The Lord’s Prayer - Matthew 6:5-15). Solely mentioning God's forgiveness without our response in repentance is also pointless, because the Blood of Christ is shed for all (John 3:16), but it does not signify all are saved because not all confess with their mouths and believe with their hearts that He is Lord (Romans 10:9-10). A lifestyle which lacks repentance is meaningless even if that life salutes God’s forgiveness. Some may talk about obtaining victory in their lives, such as: “This year will be a year of Victory! Yes and Amen!”  but similarly, no one can experience victory if one does not repent. 

Oftentimes, with regard to Biblical principles, understanding a Biblical principle requires the understanding of multiple components. A sermon presenting God's intent to bless us without presenting other vital bits and pieces is deceitful. For instance, a sermon centred on Matthew 7 "do not judge" but fails to define what the meaning of judgement is, which is condemnation (Luke 6:37); or Romans 12:1 "living sacrifices", without defining what a sacrifice is in its biblical manner, which is found the Mosaic Law, is meaningless. (without clarifying what “judgment”, one may substitute "judgment" to any term and any situation, refer to my other post: The Meaning of Judgment)

Therefore - just as how one who eagerly wants to bless another and the other needs to receive it - both sides must be presented. That is, mentioning God's stance as well as our response.  Thus, the million-dollar question is, how am I setting myself as a recipient of God’s grace and blessings?

There is a reason why God constantly and consistently urges His people to a lifestyle of sanctification, the lifestyle of Holiness through the abiding Spirit. Worshiping in spirit and truth (John 4:23) is a worshiping lifestyle in Holiness. True worship is in the Spirit, and the Spirit should be constantly living in us – not just during worship in church or a Christian congregation! We are not called to this lifestyle only because God tells us so. God calls us to Holiness so that we can receive His blessings because He is Holy and Righteous and so is His Spirit. The Spirit of God is called the Holy Spirit; how can He abide in a temple – which is our body (1 Corinthians 6:19) – that is unholy? A wasteland cannot produce fruitful crops.

Furthermore, we are called to do good, ultimately driven by our love for Him, because doing good is good for us. Righteous living, a life abstained from sin, is originally meant to be fruitful and in-sync with God. Some may forget a statement as basic as this and reverse a beautiful mutual relationship intended by God for us, to the strict adherence of rules and regulations, religion. One of the most basic principles that we need to absorb is that sin is bad and has a consequence. Sin is bad for our health, relationship, emotion, career, and everything else. This is evident from Romans 6:23, evoking death as the wage of sin. God wants us to live in Holiness because He intended it to be good for us.

God wants to bless us, but His blessings, whether spiritually, financially, socially, emotionally, relationally... are intended for those who are faithful to Him.

Thus, if you only acknowledge that He wants to bless you, but fail to respond by setting yourself as a recipient of His grace, the entire statement has become a lie. Just as it is written in Revelations 3:14-22 that God would rather prefer coldness than lukewarm-ness, let alone hotness, a “Biblical” principle that is not wholly presented is no principle at all (also evidenced in 1 John 2:18-27). Our enemy, the ancient serpent (Revelations 20:2), craftier than any other beast (Genesis 3:1), acts like a prowling lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). He has proven himself as a user of bits and pieces of lies integrated with truth to deceive us (Genesis 3 – The Fall of Man). Let us thence, be sober-minded and watchful, discerning what we hear and see with carefulness, while inviting God’s presence and blessings to come upon us as we live for His glory and honor.

A question to ponder:

Do you believe that God's blessings (everlasting) are greater than the benefits of the world (temporal)?