Can we set ourselves up for blessings?

This morning as I was flipping through the radio, I listened briefly to a message about how by living a Godly life, we set ourselves up to receive God's blessing. He equated it to putting ourselves under the funnel of God's blessing. I have heard similar statements in some churches as well, that by living a Godly life, we set ourselves in a position where we can't help but be blessed by God.

Is this a biblical position? Is there evidence that this is true? Thinking about the scriptures, a few things come to mind.

First, Job. Job was a pretty Godly man. If you do not know the story of Job, God and Satan are visiting and God tells Satan how good Job is. Satan tells God that it is just because he is blessed by God. So God challenges Satan to cause Job to curse God by removing his blessings by taking away his possessions.

Job loses everything. His family is killed, his animals are stolen or slaughtered, he loses everything. In response, Job says "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Since Job still had not cursed God, Satan wants to increase the attacks and directly attack Job. God allows it and Job is covered with painful sores. His wife tells him to curse God, but he responds, "You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?"

Now some friends of Job come to visit. They do something I think it really neat. They see Job in mourning, sitting in ashes. So they sit with him, saying nothing for seven days. They just mourn with him. They then begin a conversation that lasts for most of the book of Job. His friends are trying to find out why Job is being punished and are certain that it is because he has sinned. When questioned, he couldn't even think of a sin he had committed to cause God's blessing to leave him! Wow! If something bad happened to me and someone said, "it is probably because you sinned," I could easily think of a few dozens things I had done just that day that would pry warrant it!

In Job 40, God speaks to Job saying 6 Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm: 7 "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 8 "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? 9 Do you have an arm like God's, and can your voice thunder like his? 10 Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor, and clothe yourself in honor and majesty. 11 Unleash the fury of your wrath, look at every proud man and bring him low, 12 look at every proud man and humble him, crush the wicked where they stand. 13 Bury them all in the dust together; shroud their faces in the grave. 14 Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you.

I would venture to say that by believing we can cause God to bless us, that we on the verge of controlling God's justice and saving ourselves with our own right hand.

God continues through Chapter 40 and all of 41 questioning Job by citing nature and how God controls nature and challenges Job (and indeed us) to be able to control nature. Job responds in Chapter 42 with 1 Then Job replied to the Lord: 2 "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. 3 You asked, 'Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?' Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. 4 "You said, 'Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.' 5 My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. 6 Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

Job recognizes the power of God and his own humanity and though he hasn't sinned, humbles himself before God.

Now Chapter 42 ends with Job being blessed by God, even more than he was before the ordeal began. But the take-away message of the book is not that by being loyal to God we will be blessed. But indeed almost the opposite, that God is God, we are not, and God can do as He wills. He does not answer to us and is over us. The Godly life is not some magical method to receiving riches and fame and glory.

Job's friends take the position that God rewards goodness and punishes wickedness. We see in Job that this is not true.

In Matthew 5, Jesus reminds us of this when He says "[God] causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." Jesus tells us this to encourage us to love not only our friends, but also our enemies. Jesus shows us that God does this. Indeed are we not reminded by Paul in Romans 5:8 of this when he writes, "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Talk about being blessed when I am not setting myself up for blessing!

Christ tells us what should happen to us if we choose to follow Him. He tells us that the world will hate and despise us because of His name. He tells us to take up our cross daily and follow him. Now we know what happened to Christ when he took up his cross, he was hung on it. He is telling us in a similar form that we are to be willing to give up everything we have for his sake. As it is written in Luke 9:23-24, "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it."

I think we can be blessed by living a Godly life, but not in the way most believe blessings to be. Most tend to believe blessings to be materialistic. We are certainly not promised this by Jesus. Instead, we are blessed by God by growing closer to Him in this life and infinitely blessed by our life beyond this life. Indeed are not our blessings named by Jesus in the beatitudes? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We are called to be holy as God is holy, but not so that we are blessed. To desire to set ourselves up to be blessed by God removes our focus from where it should be. John tells us in 1 John 4:19, "We love because God first loved us."

If you desire to live a life to receive earthly blessings, you can. Jesus acknowledges this with the pharisees who did things to be seen by others and says "they have received their reward in full." But to those who seek to live for God and not for blessings, he says "great is their reward in heaven."

Can you set yourself up for blessing? We can certainly do certain things to cause "good" things to happen, but God can take away. A better life is to set yourself up to live for God. Great is the reward in heaven.