Problems I Have With The Theological Term, “Maintaining The Blessings Of God.”
Problems I Have With The Theological Term, “Maintaining The Blessings Of God.”
By Kevin E. Jesmer 2-15-16
I just finished studying Genesis 26 with a friend. We studied about the life of Isaac and Rebekah and how they were harassed in Gerar by the Philistines who stopped up their wells. They stayed in the land, at God’s command. They never fought with the Philistine herdsmen. They just moved on, digging new wells, until God led them to a place where they could dig a well and not be harassed. For two and a half decades I praised this godly family for “maintaining the blessings of God.” They did it through their obedience to God for staying in the land. They did it through their unwavering trust in God. They were willing to turn the other cheek and not fight against flesh and blood. They were willing to sacrifice their plans and their own desires to escape the famine by going to Egypt. They sacrificed a comfortable place to live by moving from one well site to another. They did it all because of their faith in God’s promises and their answering the call of God to remain the land. Does anyone have a problem with interpreting this as “maintaining the blessings of God”?
I think the whole study of Genesis 26 must rest on God and not on Isaac and Rebekah. After all, we, human beings, are simply the vessels, through which God works. The whole theme of every Bible study must be the Lord, who called the patriarchs into a covenant relationship. It is not about their ability to make it happen for God.
Which brings up a good point, are we the ones who are maintaining God’s blessings anyway? Are we even able to maintain God’s blessings? Is it not God who his maintaining his own blessings in our lives?
We are weak people. Our bodies are like jars of clay. Our, bodies, like everything in this world are destined to perish, spoil and fade away. How can we, weak people, every hope to maintain God’s blessings when it is hard enough to maintain our own lives and families?
Trying to maintain God’s blessing with our own decisions, sacrifices and self discipline, is also setting ourselves up for failure. We may be disciplined and sacrificial enough to keep things going in ministry for a little while. I tried to maintain the blessings of God, by heading up a single family house church for 14 years. I sacrificed a lot. But then depression came. There were new relationships with my family. I could not go on heading up the house church. We stopped it in 2012. Now, last week, (2-7-16) the whole house has been eradicated. There is nothing left. We are no longer part of the former ministry we were part of. Now, there may be some who would say that my wife and I failed to maintain God’s blessings and the demolition of the Bible house is proof of our failure. Then there are others who would say that God was simply closing a chapter in our Christian lives and moving us onto the next chapter. Nothing bad happened. God is just moving us to another area in his work in order to fill a different role for the ever expanding work of God.
Holding onto the wrong theology can lead to depression. What if I constantly thought I failed to maintain God’s blessing and I failed? That would definitively make me feel depressed. There is not victory in that. And where is God in that? After devoting our lives to preaching the Gospel and sacrificing a whole lot, to think that God would just sit back and say, “You are just too weak to maintain my blessings. You failed…yes…but I forgive you and now I am taking all of this blessing away from you. If you repent sincerely I will think about giving it back to you. But only if your repentance is sincere”, is ridiculous. It will make a person depressed and despaired of life and ministry.
My view on the whole matter is this…God calls his people and introduces us to a mission. He invites us to partake in what God is doing at the moment. We are entrusted with a mission from God. We are called to be a blessing to others. We are commissioned by God to serve the mission for a time. We simply embrace the call by faith, acknowledging our weakness and God’s great power to help us to stand. We follow Christ, in this calling, until God seems fit to move us. But we are always acknowledging that it is not we who are maintaining God’s blessings. It is all God, all along, who maintains his blessings and who maintains his servants wherever they are serving Christ. How freeing it is to know this and be freed from unreal expectation, that we can maintain God’s blessings. God will is maintain all that he wants to maintain. And he is doing a good job at that.
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