The Goodness of God (Chapter Eight)

Chapter Eight

Error Seven: Because Of His Grace, God Will Bless Us No Matter How We Live

"What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God Forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein." (Rom. 6:1-2)

Some who claim too be born again feel that they can live a life of sin and God will still bless them. Satan has fed them the false idea that because God is gracious and merciful, He will just wink His eye at sin in our lives.

In our last lesson, we learned that by the grace of God, His blessings are bestowed upon us FREELY. Our receiving from God is based on Christ's finished work on the cross. You and I could do nothing to EARN God's blessings. They are already available.

Yet, some have heard teaching along these lines and have insincerely taken the grace of God as a license to sin. However, the Scriptures show us a different picture concerning God's grace:

"Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy? But he giveth more grace. Where with he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace to the humble." (James 4:4-6)

First of all, this passage is not written to those outside of the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit inspired James to write this letter to Christians. In verse 2 James addresses his readers as his "brethren." Those outside of the church are not part of the universal family and therefore could not be addressed as brethren. This establishes the fact that this letter was written to people who were supposed to be a part of the body of Christ.

These people, like many today wanted the best of both worlds. They wanted the blessings of God on one hand and the pleasures and sins of the world on the other. Yet God does not appreciate those who claim to be His own having intimate fellowship with His enemies. God is a jealous God. He must either be all in our life or nothing. We must be either hot or cold because if we are lukewarm, we will be regurgitated (Rev. 3:15-16).

God further told them that they were in pride. All sin has its origin in pride. Satan fell due to pride (Isa. 14; Ezek. 28). When we sin we are full of pride because we are living independent of God. Sin is in essence saying, "God, I don't need you." When you say that then you are no longer a partaker of His grace.

James told them that the only candidates for grace were those who were HUMBLE. Those who know their need of God and want to do their best for Him. They may not yet be perfect but they are aiming for it, not in their own strength but by the supernatural power of His grace.

James was also answering the question: "If God is such a good and wonderful God, why doesn't He answer my prayer?" Before touching on God's grace, James addresses their problem of unanswered prayer in the verses ahead:

"Ye lust and have not: ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." (James 4:2-3)

Here was the reason they could get nothing: they prevented the grace of God from working in their lives by their ungodly living. They yielded to the spirit of this present evil world. They lived proud and arrogantly and then wondered why they were not being blessed.

God will supply our needs. When we delight ourselves in Him He will even give us the desires of our hearts. However, God will not give us our LUSTS. God expect us to apply the blood of Jesus and overcome them.

Although it is by the grace of God, and not our personal righteousness that we receive His blessings, God also expect us to live in His grace so that we may overcome sin in our lives. When we yield to the flesh and the spirit of the world we live apart from His grace. When we live apart from the grace of God we are cannot receive those things that His grace provides for us.

It is always God's will and His desire to bless His people but it is our choice whether we receive these things from Him:

"Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you." (Jer. 5:25)

God has promised to withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly (Ps. 84:11). Therefore, if you are not receiving good things in your life then please do not blame God. It's your SINS that have withheld those good things from coming to pass in your life. God is trying to send those things to you but your iniquities are turning them away.

Our sins frustrate the flow of God's grace on our behalf. Someone used to say "God can't bless a mess." When we decide to live a life of sin instead of living victoriously by the grace of God, God refuses to even hear our prayer:

"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." (Isa. 59:1-2)

God is saying here that the problem does not with Him or His ability to do anything. The problem is with YOU. It's our sins that separate us from Him. When sin is finished, it brings forth death (James 1:15). Death is separation from God.

It is sin that causes God to CHOOSE to not hear prayer. It isn't that He cannot hear, He chooses not to. It is when we know that God has heard our prayers that we can have confidence that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him (1 John 5:14-15). If we are living a life of sin then we either can have no confidence or we are living under a false confidence.

Unfortunately, because many people believe the error that say that we can live any way we please because of God's grace, they are living under a false confidence. It is dangerous to teach a doctrine of legalism, making people adhere to certain rules and regulations in order to maintain salvation and earn God's blessings.

Yet, it is equally dangerous to go to the other extreme of using God's grace as a license to sin. God's people will fail and make mistakes. God has made provision for that (Prov. 28:13; 1 John 1:7-9). But God does not expect nor does He condone His people making a lifestyle of sin (1 John 3:4-10).

If we are to receive the blessings of God in our lives we must do those things that are pleasing to Him:

"And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him,....." (1 John 3:22a)

Too many people stop reading right there. They are excited about this. They should. After all, it's a wonderful promise. To know that WHATSOEVER I ask, I receive of Him. Notice the word "WHATSOEVER." That covers a multitude of things - needs and desires. I can have whatsoever I ask.

Yet if we read further, we see that there is a condition attached to this privilege of limitless prayer answers:

".....because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight." (1 John 3:22b)

If we are going to receive the Father's blessings we must first learn to be a Father pleaser. One cannot please the Father and feed the lusts of his or her flesh at the same time (Rom. 8:8). Whatever you yield your members to obey is that which has become your master (Rom. 6:16).

The choice of whether we receive the blessings of God is not up to Him. It is up to us. It is no longer God's responsibility. It is ours. Someone once said that "responsibility is our response to God's ability." This is true. When we decide that we want to do the things that pleases God then the Holy Spirit will empower us to do it.

Obedience is what pleases God (Col. 3:20; 1 Thess. 4:1). God requires obedience in order that we may receive His blessings:

"And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, BECAUSE you obey the voice of the Lord your God." (Deut. 28:2; NKJV)

In both 1 John 3:22 and Deuteronomy 28:2 we see the word "because" following the promises of answered prayer and blessing. When you see the word "because" in a statement that God has made, it means that there is more to follow. It is telling you that there is a requirement to be fulfilled before you can receive the promise in your life.

Although we no longer have to observe traditions and ceremonies in order to be saved and be blessed, not one time in the New Testament did God tell us that obedience was no longer a requirement.

God still expects us to keep His moral laws (1 Cor. 5:8-20; Gal. 5:16-22; Col. 3:5-10). I remember years ago, before I gave my life to Christ I was eating in an Air Force dining facility. Some tables away I heard a man explaining to another man about salvation. He told him, "You can get saved and then do whatever you want after that."

As I heard this I thought to myself, "Then what's the use of getting saved. I’m tired of the things I'm doing." Even as a sinner I could not accept such an interpretation of the gospel. My friends, God will forgive your sins but He will not condone them. God has given us every resource to enable us to live victoriously. He still expects us to walk in His commandments concerning our moral conduct.

God is not a "magical genie" whom we can get to grant our wishes whenever we desire with no moral obligations to Him. He is God, Father, and Lord. He requires our obedience if we are to receive His blessings.

Some people hear these things and get under the mistaken delusion that God does not want us to have any "fun." They think of God as some prude old man sitting on the throne saying things like "don't do this, and don't do that." They imagine Him with lightning bolts, ready to strike the poor soul that slips.

God is not mean and prude. He did not establish moral laws for Himself. He did this for OUR sakes:

"And the Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God, FOR OUR GOOD ALWAYS, that he might preserve us alive, as it is this day." (Deut. 6:24)

"And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, and to love him and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for THY GOOD?" (Deut.10:12-13).

As you can see, God was not sitting on the throne trying to think of ways that He could further torment our miserable lives. God established His moral law in order to protect us from the dangers that are the consequences of sin.

When He warned Adam of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it was not so that He could deny Adam of any of life's pleasures. On the contrary He told Adam, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat." (Gen. 2:16). But He went on to warn Adam of the fatal consequences of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God had provided Adam with every pleasure imaginable. All that Adam could have ever needed or desired was available to him in that garden. Yet, he and Eve went on to doing something forbidden, even though it was unnecessary. Now all we have to do is pick up a newspaper to see the consequences that come as a result of their disobedience.

This was also the case with King David. After his famous adulterous affair with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband, God was very unhappy. You see, David had all the wives he could have ever needed. He had no need for another man's wife.

God reminded David of all of the blessings that He had provided him and went on to say, ".....and if that had been too little, I would moreover have given unto thee such and such things. Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight?" (2 Sam. 12:8-9).

One of the reasons God blesses us is to keep us from sinning. If what God had given to David had not been enough He would have given more. God will do the same under the new covenant (Eph. 3:20). He wants to be your provider. He does not want you to rely on the world or the devil to meet your desires. When we sin, we are telling God that His blessings are not good enough.

It's a slap in God's face for Him to supply all of our needs and to give us the desires of our hearts and we still go after things that He has forbidden. God demonstrates His love by not only giving us what we want, but also by forbidding that which would harm us.

When we disobey God's moral standard of living, we put ourselves in the enemies' territory. We give him place in our lives:

"Be angry, and SIN NOT: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil." (Eph. 4:26-27)

The Bible makes it clear that he who sins is of the devil (1 John 3:8). When we live a life of habitual sin we give place to Satan to destroy our lives and keep us from the blessings that God has for us.

When temptation to sin comes your way, and believe me, it will, you must resist it by using God's Word. Remind the devil that you are dead to sin and it no longer has any power over you. God will enable you to stand against all temptation by His grace as you stand on His Word. As you take your position against sin, you place yourself in a position to receive God's blessings.

E-mail: victoryword@yahoo.com

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