The Obedience/Blessing Principle

About a year ago, or maybe more, a guy came to preach at our church from somewhere (real specific, huh), and he said, "Obedience brings blessing, disobedience brings conflict." He had hand motions to go along with it. He'd hug his arms across his chest for "blessing" and he'd rub his rear. He used that with his kids, and the meaning is obvious. The principle holds true for everyone, child and grown-up alike.

Our Sunday school class (that's what I'll call it til I die, no matter what other fancy words the church tries to use) just began a study of Isaiah today. The first chapter of Isaiah is pretty bleak. Isaiah is going on about how horrible the people have behaved toward God and that really bad things are going to happen because God isn't going to put up with it anymore. He does give them a little glimmer of hope, that the bad things don't have to happen if the people straighten up. After reading the chapter our class had a discussion.

Time out for some kudos for our teacher. He sees his role as facilitating discussion, and he does his best to ask questions to illicit responses from everyone. Sometimes his job is harder than others, like today when we began our discussion of Isaiah. He does a great job. I have huge respect for him.

In the discussion, we were talking about the consequences of sin, and if there really are consequences in the short term for our sin. That got me to thinking about the blessing principle. God is waiting, wanting to bless His children. When we obey He pours out those blessings. When we disobey, I'm talking in the little things, the secret things, God cannot pour out those blessings because He cannot endorse our disobedience. Just like He can't give us the desires of our hearts when we are not delighting in Him.

And really, that's the point of the most important obedience. Delighting in Him. If we're doing that, the things that trip us up, that we know are sinful, are less attractive. They are considerably less appealing than the desires of our hearts, which we know we really want. Those little things, like watching a TV show I know is not good for me, or giving in to anger and snapping at my kids, are not worth forfeiting the blessings of God and the desires of my heart. Those kids ARE the desires of my heart. I prayed and prayed for them before I had them. Seeing them grow up to honor God with their lives is another HUGE desire of my heart! My behavior matters, and has lasting consequences.

Those are things I'm thinking about today. I hope that there's something here you can take away that blesses you. I hope you are spurred on to obedience.

Today the song in my head is "Love Lifted Me," the song with which we closed out this morning's service. It's in 6/8 time signature, and it just makes me smile. I've learned that I'm a sucker for 6/8. There's not a good representation of our church's version of that song available on YouTube. We don't do it the stiff way the good old Baptists did it 50 years ago. (Not that there's anything wrong with stiffness or good old Baptists- that sort of thing has its place, but it's just not in our church! Anyone who knows my church can back me on this!)