You Can’t Ask God to Bless What You Refuse to Bring Under His Authority

Why do we ask God to restore what we’re unwilling to surrender?

In this episode, we’re opening the book of Judges to uncover a sobering pattern: partial obedience always leads to compromise. The Israelites entered the Promised Land but refused to fully obey God’s commands, and one generation later they had forgotten the Lord and were living according to their own ways. What does this have to do with marriage? More than you think. If we’re praying for God’s blessing while resisting His authority, we’re building on the wrong foundation. Flourishing begins with conviction, confession, repentance, and wholehearted obedience.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome back to the High Level Life Podcast. I'm Chelsea Holm, your hostess of New Marriage Godsway here. And we're going to be moving into a new series today called You Can't Bless or You Can't Let's Try that again. You can't ask God to bless what you refuse to bring under his authority. And I'm going to make a statement that may be hard to hear, but guess what? If you signed up for this podcast and you listen to this podcast, you're expecting to hear hard things. God does not bless partial obedience. We see instance after instance of this. But that's what many of us are asking him to do. We're praying, God, restore my marriage or change my husband or bring back intimacy. But we're holding on to the very things he's already told us to put to death. We want the flourishing without the surrender. We want the blessing without repentance. We want freedom without obedience. God's commands are always for our flourishing. God never gives commands to make our lives smaller. He gives commands because He is the designer. Obedience isn't about control, it's about trust. So let's take a look at Joshua because this is where we see why complete obedience mattered. Before Israel entered the promised land, God gave clear instructions, right? Do not forget, remember what the Lord God has done for you. Keep his commandments over and over and over. We see that again before they enter the promised land. And then what happens? When they conquered cities devoted to judgment, they weren't to leave pockets of rebellion behind. The command was complete obedience. Why? Because God knew what they didn't. Whatever they spared would eventually become what enslaved them. God was not being harsh here. He was protecting his people from compromise that would pull them away from him. So in Judges, we see the beginning of this compromise rear its ugly head again. Joshua dies, and a new generation enters the land, and there's one phrase that keeps repeating over and over and over. They did not drive them out. They did not drive them out. They did not drive them out. Partial obedience became acceptable. They conquered enough to feel successful, but not enough to remain faithful. In Judges 2, we see God's diagnosis. God says, I brought you up out of Egypt. I kept my covenant. I told you not to make covenants with these people, but you have not obeyed my voice. Notice the issue wasn't that Israel knew nothing. The issue is they obeyed selectively. Are you seeing? Are you hearing what I'm laying down here? Let's keep going if you're not. So it was just in one generation. Judges 2.10 says that another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Think about that. It was just one generation. How? How is this even possible? Parents stopped telling the stories. They stopped remembering God's faithfulness. They blended into the surrounding culture. They inherited the promised land, but forgot the God who gave it. And then in Judges 2, 19, this heartbreaking verse that just stopped me in my track today as I was reading it said they did not abandon their practices or their stubborn ways. Sure, they they cried out when life got hard. They wanted deliverance, but they refused repentance. They wanted to be rescued without removing the idols. And they wanted the blessing without the surrender. So let's bring it home, wives. Christian wife, how often do we pray, Lord, restore my marriage? Lord, soften my husband, Lord, bless our home. But at the same time, we're speaking out the other side of our mouth by refusing to put to death resentment, disrespect, control. We'll talk about what I want to talk about. I don't want to talk about this, so we won't talk about it. Ooh, manipulation. When you do the things I ask of you, then I will. Bitterness. Keeping that score and holding it over them. Pride. You don't follow the Lord. Like I think you should follow the Lord, husband. Self-protection. I refuse to acknowledge or address, or I refuse to admit that even though I think that I dealt with these things, they're still walking in authority over my life. Rebellion against God's design. The wife is the help meet. The husband is the head. We ask God to bless what he's asking us to surrender. Partial obedience is still disobedience. We see this with Saul, right? When God told him to destroy everything, and instead he thought, let's keep the livestock to offer as sacrifices to God. Oof. And he things did not go well. We like to negotiate with God. I'll give forgive eventually, or I'll honor him if he earns it. I'll submit if I agree. I'll trust you after you explain. But delayed obedience, selective obedience, convenient obedience isn't biblical obedience. We see this culturally, right? We we hear a world right now that says, love your neighbor as yourself, while completely denying the first command, which is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. You cannot do the second without fully doing the first. So you cannot ask for blessing while refusing to repent and to walk out fully in obedience. Colossians 3 tells us to put to death, put off the old self, put on the new. Notice the language, it doesn't tell you to manage it. Don't manage your sin. Don't manage your flesh or excuse it. Rename it. Our culture loves to rename things. If we call an unborn baby a fetus, then it's not actually a baby. Yes, it is. Our culture loves to rename things. What are you renaming in your life? That is rebellion and disobedience, where God is telling you, commanding you to surrender and submit. Put it to death. Because what you leave alive will eventually wage war against you. Romans 8 13 says that if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. I love Paul's words when he says, if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your left eye, or maybe it's the opposite, if your left eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. Or did Jesus say that? You can go look that up. I don't know. I can't remember. I know a lot of scripture. I'm still working on the correlating references that go with it. All right. Life comes through putting sin to death, not making peace with it. If you want to flourish, you need to understand the pattern of flourishing because God's pattern has always been conviction, confession, repentance, restoration. Not blessing first, repentance later, my friend. Not, I'll get to it later, not I'm waiting on him to move first. No. So before asking this week, God, what should my husband change? Or God help my husband to change, or God, here's what I see in my husband that needs to change. Instead, ask, what have you, God, asked me to put to death? Where am I only partially obeying? What compromise have I justified? What Canaanite have I allowed to remain because dealing with it feels too costly? Because what did they do? Right? They took these people on as forced laborers for them, but they were still intermingling in the culture. They still had to man, they had to manage these people, right? Like, think about that in your life. What is the rebellion in your heart that you are allowing to remain and dealing with it actually is costly. You just haven't acknowledged it yet. The Israelites didn't lose their way overnight, they lost it one compromise at a time. One tolerated enemy, one act of partial obedience, one generation that forgot the works of the Lord. So Christian wife, flourishing marriages rarely collapse in a single day. They don't. They are usually eroded by tolerated compromise, partial obedience, and sin we keep asking God to bless instead of putting to death. I'm going to leave you with a final scripture here. John 14, 15 says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Not because obedience earns God's love, but because obedience is the fruit of loving him.

unknown 10:26

Right?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

This isn't about earning, this is about being pleasing to God because we have received the free gift of salvation. And we stand free in Christ's righteousness and the finished work of the cross. That the enemies and demonic powers of this world have been disarmed and put to shame. So if those have been disarmed and put to shame, why are we allowing sin and old practices of idolatry, idolatry, and rebellion to remain living among us in our hearts? The next episode we're going to confront one of the biggest lies shaping Christian marriages today. It's the belief that God's design for men and women is outdated, oppressive, or optional. Before we can experience the fruit of God's design, we have to decide whose authority we're going to live under. Are we going to live under cultural authority? Are we going to live under our flesh authority? Are we going to live under the enemy's authority? Or are we going to live under God's authority? I will see you on the next episode.