Blessings—With Conditions

God desperately longs to bless those who desperately long to be blessed. He longs to gather us under his protection, to strengthen us in our pursuit of success, and to even grant us the desires of our heart. But let’s be clear about God’s desperate longing to bless: it is conditional. In every Biblical promise of Divine blessing there is a discernible if-then equation. “Then” I will bless you is the unconditional promise, “if” is the condition to the unconditional, and our obedience is the “if” that catalyzes the release of those unconditional blessings.

The Journey// Focus: Exodus 26:3-9

If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land. I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land. In fact, you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword. I will look favorably upon you, making you fertile and multiplying your people. And I will fulfill my covenant with you.

Who doesn’t want Divine blessings poured out in their life? I long for God’s favor in my life and upon everything that concerns me, and you long for the same blessings in your life. And what is really encouraging is that God urgently desires to release those blessings to us as well. In fact, your insatiable desire to be blessed is miniscule compared to God’s desperate longing to bless.

“Desperate longing!” Is that overstating the matter? Can God, by definition, be desperate? Well, consider God the Son’s broken heart over a people that rejected him, and in so doing, forfeited a visitation of Divine favor:

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let me. (Matthew 23:37)

Or consider God’s plaintiff word to King Asa, who had abandoned his utter reliance on the Lord:

The eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What a fool you have been! From now on you will be at war. (2 Chronicles 16:9)

So yes, God desperately longs to bless those who desperately long to be blessed. He longs to gather us under his protection, to strengthen us in our pursuit of success, and to even grant us the desires of our heart:

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you your heart’s desires. Commit everything you do to the Lord. Trust him, and he will help you. (Psalm 37:4-5)

Notice that Jesus even went so far as to say that God will grant us what we wish for in prayer in response to our abiding in him.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:7-8)

God has made some incredible promises to bless us, hasn’t he? And according to what Jesus said in John 15:8, the blessings that God graciously bestows upon us actually glorifies him. Moreover, those blessings literally witness to a watching world of the loving God who sends the blessings (“you show yourselves to be my disciples”).

But let’s be clear about God’s desperate longing to bless. It is conditional. In each of the verses I have mentioned, and I dare say in every promise of Divine blessing in Scripture, you will discern an if-then equation. “Then” I will bless you is the unconditional promise; “if” is the condition to the unconditional. Sounds like I am babbling, but it is true: If I do this, then God will do this—guaranteed. That is exactly what we are seeing in these verses, as well as in Leviticus 26.

And here is the “if”, the catalyst to the release of unconditional blessing: obedience. “If you are careful to obey my commands, then I will…” (Leviticus 26:3) And in this chapter, along with every other “if-then” promise of blessing in the Bible, you will find what the “then” of blessing is:

1. God promises the blessing of provision. Leviticus 26: 4-5 says, “The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in your own land.” With God’s provision, you are unlimited. Nothing will hamper you.
2. God promises the blessing of protection. Leviticus 26:6 says, “I will give you peace in the land, and you will be able to sleep with no cause for fear. I will rid the land of wild animals and keep your enemies out of your land.” With God’s protection, you are untouchable. Nothing will harm you.
3. God promises the blessing of power. Leviticus 26:7-8 says, “you will chase down your enemies and slaughter them with your swords. Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand! All your enemies will fall beneath your sword.” With God’s power, you are unstoppable. Nothing will halt you!
4. God promises the blessing of his presence. Throughout Leviticus 26:3-9, God repeatedly says, “I will send… I will give… I will rid the land… I will look favorably upon… I will fulfill my covenant…” With God’s presence, you are invincible! Nothing will hinder God’s love for you.

If-then. Knowing the “then” of blessing, who wouldn’t want to offer God the “if” of obedience!