What if you’re living right, but aren’t being blessed like you want?

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.

Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.”
Luke 6:27-38

Because of Jesus’ work on the cross, all who trust Him for salvation become children of God, highly favored and blessed.  Accessing these blessings doesn’t depend on our good works, but it does require us to position ourselves to be ready to receive what God wants to give by grace.  That’s why we seek to live rightly, not to earn His favor, but to open our hands and hearts to receive the favor He’s already offered.

However, what if you feel you’re living the way you should, but aren’t seeing the results you want?

Here’s the thing.  We are not always the best judge of how well and how purely we are giving and loving and living.   Sometimes our motives aren’t as pure as we think they are, or our methods aren’t as helpful as they could be, especially when other people are involved.  What can happen, then, is that we feel we’re doing what we’re supposed to, but God is not coming through on His end of the bargain.

And that’s the source of the problem.

If we feel God “owes” us, or we “deserve” something because of what we’ve done, then that attitude in and of itself is our main indicator that our motives aren’t pure when we serve, and our hearts aren’t ready to receive the blessings He wants for us yet.  He alone has the ability to see inside to what’s really going on.

A ten year old asking for the car keys should never be given what they’re asking for, not because their parents don’t love them, but because they do.  Sometimes the most loving thing God can do is withhold something we’re asking for, because He knows that giving it to us now would only hurt us in ways we can’t even see, because we’re not quite able to handle it.

It also means that in seasons of pain or perceived lack, we can trust that God is not punishing us, but preparing us for greater things down the road.

Because of this, our call is to always do our best, always seek to serve others well, and to not judge God’s promises based on whether or not we think we got what we “deserved.”  We trust Him to be true to His Word, and look for Him to show us where we have room to work on our heart and turn our eyes more purely up to Him.

That’s where the freedom comes.  That’s when the blessing comes.  That’s when we find ourselves in a place where our hearts are emptied of our self-will and selfishness.

That’s when we’re ready to be fully filled by Him.