Ice-breaker: If God asked you, “How much do I owe you son/daughter?” How would answer Him?
Scriptures: Proverbs 28:13, Job 11:13-19.
INTRODUCTION:
When God asks something, he pays with interest. This passage contains certain conditions that God demands of us, and certain promises if said conditions are fulfilled. The conditions or commandments that are needed to receive the promises or blessings of God are four. The promises are more than the conditions or commandments. These words apply to every person.
I. CONDITIONS OR COMMANDMENTS
a) "if you allowed your heart" … (v.13) Nobody can seek God for us; each one has to seek Him him/herself. Our relatives cannot do it for us; neither the pastor or the evangelist.
b) "and extended to him your hands" … (v. 13) To extend the hands to God is sign of worship, of service, of rendering. (Is sign of reverence and humiliation, not of arrogance.)
c) "if some iniquity were in your hand, and you cast it from you" (v. 14). It is not only to recognize it, but to leave from that place. The drunk, the addict, the adulterer they recognize their condition; but they need to leave from that sinful situation.
d) "and consent your house to inhabit injustice" (v. 14). One thing is to be tempted, and another to leave allow the temptation control our way of life.
II. THE PROMISES
From verse 15 to verse 19 we have registered the blessings and rewards. But to arrive at these blessings one must pass for the conditions studied.
a) "then you lift your clean face from stain and you will be strong, and fear nothing" (v. 15) For each condition there are at least two promises. When God asks something of us He rewards well. The idea to comply with the demands of God, brings shine, a special brightness to our fallen face. He will give you strength as a buffalo; He multiplies the strength to him/her who does not have any.
b) "You will forget your misery, or will remember it like of water that has passed" (v. 16). When Joseph was sold to Egypt he is believed to have been 17 years old. When he was raised to second in command he was 30. 13 years of adversity had elapsed. But when God affirmed his life it was much blessing that he named his son Manasseh which signifies "the one that causes to forget".
c) "Life will be clearer than noon; although it darkens, it will be like the morning" (v. 17). The brightness of the new life in Christ is more powerful than any problem that want shadow your life.
d) "You will Have confidence, because there is hope. You will look at around, and will sleep with assurance" (v. 18). Confidence is the full security of having the presence of God in our lives. And "hope" signifies that everything that we do in the Lord will be successful.
e) "AND many will seek your favor" (v. 19). This it is the gold closure of the blessings: the moment will arrive in which it becomes a source of blessings where others will be assisted, encouraged, restored and prospered.
QUESTIONS
1. What does God demand in order to participate of His blessings?
2. What do you focus on more: in the commandment or in the reward?
3. Would you be ready to obey to God in what He is asking from you?
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