The Connection Between Favor & Obedience

Does obedience earn you more favor from God? It's..."complicated". Let's break it down in this episode 

In this requested episode, we are diving into all things favor. What is favor? How do we receive favor? What is the purpose of favor? And how obedience is a factor in both losing and gaining favor.

Have a beautiful and blessed week!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, hello, my beautiful ladies. Welcome into the Fruitful Feminine. I am Alexis. I have 50% of my voice today. So if you are new, I promise usually I sound a lot nicer. Welcome, welcome, ladies. We're gonna be talking about the connection between obedience and favor today. Daniela. Daniela, I hope you're listening to this girl. I saw your comment on the last podcast episode to please talk about this. So this one is just for you. This is gonna be a really fun episode because we're going to dive into the book of Deuteronomy. And favor is one of those things that science cannot explain. No human philosophy can explain. It's a gift from God and it's life-changing and it's beautiful. And the question is: can obedience earn you more favor? And that's what this episode will get into. I don't know what has been going on today, but I woke up, I've been so sick today, and now my voice is just randomly getting lost. And I thought, okay, enemy, get out of here. I rebuke this in Jesus' name. I'm still going to record this episode. So I think this is going to be a very powerful one because my voice is gone halfway. Um, but please just bear with me if it goes out a little bit and I'm drinking water, I'm just not feeling the best. But I'm still so excited to talk about this. Alright, so obedience and favor. If you have your Bible, this is an excellent episode to read with me because you'll see specific words and phrases and patterns that will be really cool to highlight. Can obedience earn you more favor? Is the question. My answer is possibly. I cannot say 100% yes to this. And even just that question made me a bit scared to do this episode because I thought, how do I talk about this when I'm not a hundred percent certain? Nowhere in the Bible does it say the more obedient you are, the more favor God will give you. However, God, what he always does, and we just talked about this in our last episode, he will put messages in between the lines, and when you read scripture, I mean you physically read the Bible, you see patterns and you see wisdom revealed that God is not saying directly. I believe that when you are more obedient, you do receive more favor. And I'll share some scriptures that have revealed this to me. It's well, it's pretty well known within Christianity that if you are disobedient, you can lose favor. That is something else we will talk about because that for me is a very clear thing that God says throughout scripture. We're going to be looking at the Israelites, of course. Um, they have some very disobedient patterns, but don't we all? And getting into this before we even get into the scripture, what is favor? So the way that I think of favor is as a gift. And it's not a gift that you get for being a well-behaved daughter or son. That can be why you receive a gift, but it may be just because you have a father who loves you. So the way that I think of it is with my dog Gus. I literally just gave him some treats before this episode. When Gus is obedient, when he sits, when he does his tricks that I've taught him, and he's well behaved, I give him treats. However, sometimes I'm just looking at him and I think, you're the cutest dog in the world, and I love you so much. And I want to give him a treat just because I think, and I can't say I know for this one, but I think this is what God does for us is he gives us favor, one, as a reward for our obedience, and he gives us favor just out of the blue, no explanation, just because he loves us. What does favor look like? Favor looks like anything from a talent, uh, beauty, success, open doors, good health, protection. There's so many times where I think I will get to heaven and replay moments of my life here on earth and think, whoa, I was almost in a car accident that time, or I almost got into trouble that time. But God, you gave me favor in the form of protection and you saved me. I know for sure that God gives protection as a gift of favor. And so favor can look like all of these. It can look like meeting the right person at the right time, being in the right place at the right time, your network, uh, just so many things. Favor, it can also look like opportunity, it can look like ease, it can look like you having a talent or an ability to do something that people might look at you and say, How do you do this? And it's God's favor on your life. How did your social media account explode? It's God's favor. Every single success that you have is a gift from God. And so, yes, favor, I don't want to say it can be earned, it can be linked to obedience. However, favor can also just be random because God loves you. All right, where in the Bible does it talk about favor? We're gonna start with Deuteronomy. There's two very clear, clear uh mentions of favor connecting to obedience in the Bible. And the first one is going to be in Deuteronomy 11. So this is 11, verse 8. And it says, The blessings of obedience. Therefore, be careful to obey every command I am giving you today, so you may have strength to go in and take over the land you are about to enter. Quick backstory: this is Moses speaking to the Israelites. So they had already escaped out of slavery in Egypt. They've been wandering through the wilderness, and uh what happens here is Moses is speaking to the Israelites who have been close to God, who have been faithful to God, and being prepared to go into the wilderness. And so Moses tells them, if you obey, you will enjoy a long life in the land the Lord swore the Lord swore to give to your ancestors and to you, their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. For the land you are about to enter and take over is not like the land of Egypt from where you came, where you planted your seed and made irrigation ditches with your foot as in a vegetable garden. You'll want to remember that sentence, because we'll come back to it in just a minute. Rather, the land you will soon take over is a land of hills and valleys with plenty of rain, a land that the Lord God cares for. He watches over it through each season of the year. If you carefully obey the commands that I am giving you today, and you love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and soul, then he will send the rains in their proper seasons, the early and late rains, so you can bring in your harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil. He will give you lush pasture land for your livestock, and you yourselves will have all that you want to eat. But be careful, don't let your heart be deceived so that you turn away from the Lord and serve and worship other gods. If you do, the Lord's anger will anger will burn against you, he will shut up the sky and hold back the rain, and the ground will fail to produce its harvests. Then you will quickly die in that good land the Lord is giving you. So why he tells the Israelites to not fall into disobedience, not fall into idol worship, is because the Israelites that he is speaking to, they are the children of the original Israelites that left Egypt. Those Israelites were very disobedient, they were very unfaithful to God, and so they lost access to the promised land. God tells them, Because you were unfaithful and disobedient to me, you will not enter the land that I have reserved for you. Only your children will enter. And so this is who Moses is speaking to now. And you remember that sentence I said, you'll want to remember this. Well, what Moses tells them, this is back in verse 10 and 11, he goes, The land that you enter, it will have harvests that you did not plant the seed for. What does this mean? It means that when you are obedient and God gives you favor because of it, there will be harvests, there will be abundance that comes from labor that you did not have to put work into. This is what favor looks like. Open doors, ease. It looks like receiving when you didn't do that work to sow. It's almost like skipping a step and going straight to the harvest. The next part where it talks about obedience in favor, this is now Deuteronomy 28. Let me find that again. Okay. So it's titled Blessings for Obedience, and it says, this is again Moses speaking, if you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands I'm giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God. And these are the blessings that Moses is saying. When I read these now, I want you to think about what these could translate to in modern day times. So it says, You will experience that your towns and your fields will be blessed, your children and your crops will be blessed, the offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Investments, anyone? Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven. The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do, and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he swore he would do. Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to give your ancestors, bless er that he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in heaven, and will bless all the work that you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You will always be on top and never at the bottom. You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them. That one is really, really important. And something that I want to highlight there is earlier, uh when God says in verse 10, all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. Favor is not just about us receiving a gift, it's also for other people to receive the gift of God. Because something that starts to happen as the Israelites are victorious and they are entering their promised land, and their enemies are saying, You have way less men than we do. How are you conquering us? Like, how do you have this favor? They don't they don't understand it, but they know that they are faithful to God. And so your enemies, the people that God puts you in front of, acquaintances, strangers, when they see God's favor on your life, they see God's light, they see God's work. They may have never heard of God before, they may have never been introduced to a relationship with him, but your favor plants a seed in their mind of who is this God? I want to get to know him. So those are the beginning mentions of favor and how it connects to obedience. Next part that we're gonna talk about here is how we lose favor. Then we'll go into how we gain favor. So, starting with how we lose favor, Moses is just speaking to the Israelites, and you'll see how they begin to lose their favor. Deuteronomy chapter 1, starting with verse 20. And what's happening right now in Deuteronomy is Moses is just recapping everything that has just happened in the Exodus. So Leviticus, Numbers, this is just a recount of what has happened. Well, there's one very, very powerful turnaround that happened in the book, I believe it's uh it's either Exodus, Leviticus, or Numbers, one of those, where the Israelites lose access to the promised land. So remember earlier how I said God tells the Israelites, You will not enter the promised land because you were unfaithful to me, only your children will enter. Well, this story that I'm about to read is why they lost that. What happened when the Israelites were unfaithful? So this is Moses talking, and he says, I said to you, You have now reached the hill country of the Amorites that the Lord God is giving us. Look, he has placed the land in front of you, go and occupy it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, has promised you. Don't be afraid, don't be discouraged. So what's happening is they've been wandering in the wilderness for a little bit, the Israelites, and God brings them to the land of the Amorites. This is part of their promised land. However, there are enemies living in this land, and God says to the Israelites, This land belongs to you. Go in, conquer the enemies, take the land, I will be with you. I've already given it to you. The people, the Amorites who were living in the land were extremely, extremely evil, super, super corrupt, and God wants to remove the evil. So what happens when Moses says, okay, God tells us, let's go, let's conquer this land. Well, this is what happens. Verse 22. But you all came to me and said, First, let's send out scouts to explore the land for us. They will advise us on the best route to take and which towns we should enter. Side note, anytime we add an extra step where God has already told us to do something, it's probably not going to be good. So Moses says, Okay, you Israelites think that you should have some scouts to go and investigate the land. Even though God has already said, This land is yours, go in and conquer it. Let's just go with the scouts. Moses goes, This seemed like a good idea to me. So I chose twelve scouts, one from each of your tribes. They headed for the hill country and came to the valley of Eshkol and explored it. They picked some of some of its fruit and brought it back to us. And they reported, The land the Lord our God has given us is indeed a good land. Beautiful. So you would think the Israelites would just go in and conquer it. And if you read, I believe it's numbers where this happens. Well, the scouts, they go into this land. They're very secretive. They go, they're looking at who lives in the land, they're looking at the size of the enemies, they're pretty much sizing up how hard it's going to be to conquer the land. And they end up taking some fruit from the promised land. And what is so special about this fruit is they describe things like the grapes are literally the size of their head. It takes two men just to carry the fruit back from this land. It's such beautiful, abundant land that God has wanted to bless them with. So we keep reading Israel's rebellion against the Lord, verse 26. But even after you said, this is just me talking, this is not in the Bible, even after you said the Lord has given us a good land, we continue. But you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refused to go in. You complained in your tents and said, The Lord must hate us. That's why He has brought us here from Egypt, to hand us over to the Amorites to be slaughtered. Where can we go? Our brothers have demoralized us with their report. They tell us the people of this land are taller and more powerful than we are, and their towns are large, with walls rising high into the sky. We even saw giants there, the descendants of Enoch. What the scouts also saw was that the size of the enemies were very, very large. There were actual giants at this time. So they saw the size of the fruit, but then they saw the size of the enemies, and they lost faith. And these twelve scouts, not all of them, Caleb was not part of this, but ten of the scouts come back and they they instill fear in all the Israelites, and they say, This land that has giants will never win, God must hate us. And then we continue in verse twenty-nine. But I said to you, Don't be shocked or afraid of them. The Lord your God is going ahead of you. He will fight for you, just as you saw him do in Egypt. And you saw how the Lord your God cared for you all along the way as you travel through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child. Now he has brought you to this place. But even after all he did, you refuse to trust the Lord your God, who goes before you looking for the best place to camp, guiding you with a pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. When the Lord heard your complaining, he became very angry. So he solemnly swore, None of you from this wicked generation will live to see the good land. I swore to give your ancestors. Ouch. One moment they had been so faithful, and well, they had a few mess ups, we're all human. They had been very, very faithful during all their time in the wilderness. They see the giants in this one part of the land, get scared, don't believe in, don't believe God will take care of them. And God goes, You will not live to see the promised land. And for 40 additional years, they're walking around in circles in the wilderness, just waiting for this generation to die off. So the cost of their disobedience was a loss of favor. They would have won and beat the giants and conquered the land, but they couldn't see it because their faith was brighter than their obedience. How do you have stronger obedience? Dial down your fear. We have an episode called How to Have Faith When You Feel Fear. That's going to be a really, really good one to pair with this episode. So the Israelites lose their promised land. We go down to verse 39, and it says, I will give the land to your little ones, to your innocent children. You were afraid they would be captured, but they will be the ones to occupy it. As for you, turn around now and go back through the wilderness toward the Red Sea. So they literally go backwards in their journey after this. Then you confessed, We have sinned against the Lord. We will go into the land and fight for it, as the Lord our God has commanded us. So your men's your men strapped on their weapons, thinking it would be easy to attack the hill country. But the Lord told me to tell you, Do not attack, for I am not with you. If you go ahead on your own, you will be crushed by your enemies. This is what I told you, but you would not listen. Instead you rebelled against the Lord's command and arrogantly went into the hill country to fight. And the Amorites who lived there came out against you like a swarm of bees. They chased and battered you all the way from Ser to Horma. Then you returned and wept before the Lord, but he refused to listen. So after that, they wander in the wilderness for another forty years. Something that I think is so significant is when the Israelites realize that they've lost God's favor and that he would have been with them to fight their enemies, they still try to go and fight that enemy, anyways. But the difference is God's favor is not with them. Same battle, same enemy, difference in favor equals a different outcome. I love that God tells us this through this story that it is not about the size of your giant. It does not matter the size of the enemy. It does not matter the size of your problem. If you have God's favor, the size does not matter. If you lose God's favor, don't even go forward because you already lost the moment. So that is why that's Saying delayed obedience is disobedience because if you do not act when God says move, it is saying to God's command, no. And it's an act of disobedience, and you lose favor. Sometimes we do this, we hesitate and we ignore and we're delaying the obedience, and then we go and do what God previously told us to do, and it doesn't work out, or it leads to destruction, and we're like, we're blaming God. God, why did you allow this? You told me to do this. He goes, I told you to do this yesterday, last year, not today. The favor can be lost. And I don't want to say this to scare you because I think God is so merciful and has so much grace where yes, we make mistakes, and there's there's so much grace for that. However, there's so many times where we've probably lost favor that we don't know, and it's a result of our disobedience. So, a lesson from this story uh arrogance is a root of disobedience. When God is telling his children, you arrogantly went in to fight the enemy after I told you opportunity is gone. Arrogance, thinking that we are in control, is a root of disobedience. And that's what's so powerful to me is realizing because I am never in control, when God tells me to move and I say no, I'm telling him, God, I know better than you. I'm not gonna do it. Yikes. That's a scary reality to live in. Another key is we can even taste the fruit from our promised land, but still fall into disobedience because of fear. So you must actively rebuke fear. You must actively prioritize and strengthen your faith over your fear. Because even if you're tasting the fruit, it will not last without obedience. How you can keep that faith over your fear is look at what God has delivered you from already, rather than looking at the giants that are in front of you now. The Israelites, they were enslaved by the strongest nation in the world at this time, Egypt. And God rescued all of the Israelites out of Egypt. And when the most powerful army in the world, the Egyptians, starts chasing the Israelites, and the Israelites literally have no chance of fighting them, Moses and the Israelites obey God. God says, walk up to the water, I'm gonna part the sea for you. They had never seen a sea just open up and part ever. None of us have. But God opens it up for them. The Israelites walk through onto the other side, and as the Egyptians are chasing them through the Red Sea, God sends the sea crashing down. Not a single survivor is left of the Egyptians. But the Israelites forgot that God did that. And they're looking at the giants in these in their promised land and going, I don't think we can fight them. Sometimes when I read the Old Testament, I want to scream like, guys, God literally parted the Red Sea for you. What do you mean he can't help you in this battle? But then I remember we all do this, and this is the story of literally our journey as a human. So look at what God has already delivered you from. That's probably the only time where I will ever encourage you to look at your past, not your present. What I mean by that is just look at what God has already done. Another time that the Israelites lose their favor. Judges has been one of my favorite books in the Old Testament to read. It feels like a movie. So this is Judges 2, verse 21. And so, what has happened at this point? So now this is from the Israelites that were disobedient, wandered around in the wilderness. Well, this is now their children's point of view. So, long story short, all those Israelites died off. Now their children are entering the promised land. Moses has also died, and the um Israelite children are led by Joshua. So they have all the success. They're fighting their enemies now, they're entering their promised land, they're conquering it. And then Joshua dies. Now the Israelites don't have a strong leader anymore, and something starts to happen. Disobedience enters the picture. So this is Judges 2, verses 10. Israel disobeys the Lord. You already know what's coming with that title. After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. So this is now the children of those children, of the disobedient children, if that makes sense. The Israelites did evil in the Lord's sight and served the images of Baal. They abandoned the Lord, the god of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They went after other gods, worshipping the gods of the people around them, and they angered the Lord. They abandoned the Lord to serve Baal in the images of Ashtareth. This made the Lord burn with anger against Israel. So he handed them over to the raiders who stole their possessions. Picking up in verse sixteen, then the Lord raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their attackers. Or sorry, one important verse right before this. Every time Israel went out to battle, the Lord fought against them, causing them to be defeated, just as he had warned, and the people were in great distress. So now, because God is so merciful, comes back to rescue his children. Then the Lord raised up judges to rescue the Israelites from their attackers. Yet Israel did not listen to the judges, but prostituted themselves by worshiping other gods, how quickly they turned away from the path of their ancestors who had walked in obedience to the Lord's command. So again, the Israelites fall into disobedience, and they had just had this huge victory entering their promised land. And it's oh, it's so frustrating to read this sometimes, but again, it's just the story of how we are, also. And so now uh jumping to verse 21. This is the important part. It says, This is God saying, I will no longer drive out the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died. At this point, when I said that the Israelites just had a huge victory, it's because they had just conquered the entire north and south regions of their promised land. Enemy after enemy, territory after territory, town after town. If you read the book of Joshua, it's just one victory after another. However, the east and the west side of the promised land still need to be conquered by the Israelites. God says this land belongs to you, uh, but it'll all tell you the right time to conquer it. So, God is now saying to them, I will no longer drive out the nations that Joshua left unconquered when he died. I did this to test Israel, to see whether or not they would follow the ways of the Lord as their ancestors did. That is why the Lord left those nations in place. He did not quickly drive them out or allow Joshua to conquer them all. When I was reading Joshua, I was even wondering that. I'm like, okay, they're on a roll. Why didn't God just clear out the enemies from the East and the West too? Then I come back and I read Judges and I thought, oh, he wanted to see how the grandchildren would react, and they did not live up to their parents or grandparents. Uh so now what happens is God is saying, all that favor of victory, gone. I will not clear out your enemies for you because you have been disobedient. And so our faith and our obedience, it can make the difference in receiving or sacrificing a promise. We can literally have the promised land underneath our feet, and our obedience can make the difference on if we keep it or if we sacrifice it. What is very important here is at the root of the disobedience for the Israelites, what is it? It's having an idol. And what I also think is interesting here is that past disobedience can impact present disobedience and future disobedience. Why did the Israelites have idols? If we go back to Deuteronomy, I believe uh Deuteronomy 1, 29, and then also Deuteronomy 3, verse 5 through 6. What happened back then is the Israelites, when they are uh fighting for their promised land, God tells them, clear out all of the Canaanites, clear out all of the enemies, do not leave a trace of the enemies. No women, no materials, no idols from the enemies, nothing. Clear them out. Did the Israelites listen? You can probably guess by now. No, they did not. They left traces of the enemy. They left Canaanites remaining when God told them, wipe them out. And where do the idols come from that the Israelites now fall into worshiping a generation later? They come from the Canaanites that they were supposed to get rid of. The Canaanites worshipped false gods, Baal, all these um idols and carvings and statues. And now, because the Israelites didn't obey God previously in their generations, now they're falling into the trap of disobedience by worshiping false gods. And God goes, let your false God save you. You've lost my favor. So past disobedience can influence future disobedience. At the root of disobedience is arrogance, like we were talking about earlier. It's weak faith and having idols. All right. I know all of this has been very, very negative and down, right? Okay, let's move on to how to win with favor and how to how to not gain more favor but be available for more favor from God. We know the detrimental cost of losing it. Uh, thank you, Israelites, for sharing the story with us. So now we're gonna move on to the Israelites winning with favor because there's so many times where they do earn more favor from God and they are so obedient. And we're gonna start in Deuteronomy four. So going backwards again, this is when Moses is still alive. So Deuteronomy four, verse one through nine. This is uh before we talk about the Israelites winning favor, this part here will show the purpose of favor. Why does God give favor? Moses urges Israel to obey, is the title. And now, Israel, listen carefully to these decrees and regulations that I am about to teach you. Obey them so that you may live, so that you may enter and occupy the land that the Lord your God of your ancestors is giving you. Do not add or subtract from these commands I am giving you. Just obey all the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you. You saw for yourself what the Lord did to you at Baal Peor. There the Lord your God destroyed everyone who had worshipped Baal, the God of Pure. But all of you who are faithful to the Lord your God are still alive today, every one of you. Look, I now teach you these decrees and regulations just as the Lord my God commanded me, so that you may obey them in the land you are about to enter and occupy. Obey them completely, and you will display your wisdom and intelligence among the surrounding nations. When they hear all these decrees, they will exclaim, How wise and prudent are the people of this great nation! What a great nation has a God as near to them as the Lord our God is near to us whenever we call on him. And the purpose of favor that's being shown here is as we talked about earlier, it's to glorify God. It's to show other nations, look at how much their God loves them. So something that I didn't used to believe when I first was a Christian is I didn't believe other gods existed. I was like, nope, there's only one God. There is only one God. And there's also false gods that come from demonic sources. Well, I used to think, no, no, no, that's not real. Like demonic sources, I don't, I don't know about all of that. Until I started reading the Bible and I thought, oh, okay, I see. So all of the enemies at this time who are worshiping false gods from demonic sources, this is why God wants the enemies to be destroyed and why he wants the Israelites to move into the promised land at this time. And what happens is when the Israelites they're just having victory after victory, the the other nations are going, their God loves them. Look at how he protects them, look at how much he pours into them. They don't have all these spiritual problems like we have, they don't have all of these inner battles, they're not losing. They're they're led by a God that is so powerful. And so it starts to open them up to the idea that the God they are worshiping does not love them or care for them. And a lot of the false gods at this time, they would do things like tell their followers to sacrifice their children. They're just evil, evil, corrupt, false gods. And so the purpose of favor is to say, is to point to God and to glorify him. And when the Israelites are receiving their favor, the other nations are starting to see this. Now moving on to the timeline of favor. Like, does favor happen immediately after obedience? How does that timeline kind of look? So we can see this if we go to Deuteronomy 7, verses 12. So this is 12 through 15 that I'm about to read. And God says, If you listen, or but this is Moses saying, if you listen to these regulations and faithfully obey them, the Lord your God will keep his covenant of unfailing love with you, as he has promised with an oath to your ancestors. He will love you and bless you, and he will give you many children. He will give fertility to your land and to your animals, and you and when you arrive in the land he swore to give to your ancestors, you will have large harvests of grain, new wine, and olive oil, and great herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. You will be blessed above all the nations of the earth. None of your men or women will be childless, and all your livestock will bear young. So fruitity and fertility are gifts of favor from the Lord. If we jump to verse 17 now, it says, Perhaps you will think to yourselves, how can we ever conquer these nations that are so much more powerful than we are? And that's exactly what they end up thinking. When they see the Amorites in the in the promised land, they look at the giants. How can we end up doing this? This is what Moses says in verse 21 now. It says, No, do not be afraid of those nations, for the Lord your God is among you, and he is a great and awesome God. The Lord your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once. This is the most important thing that we may read in this whole section. You will not clear them away all at once. Otherwise, the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you. When I first read this, I highlighted it so much because something clicked for me, and I thought, this is why God's time is so much better than mine. So what he's telling his children is, yes, you're going to conquer your enemies. No, you do not need to be afraid of them, even though it's going to take you some time to conquer them. But if I handed all of your enemies to you right now, if the entire promised land was yours, you know what would happen? The wild animals would be another problem for you. Because all this land is open, you haven't had time to move in and settle, the enemies are wiped out, so they're not taking care of these wild animals, and they would multiply too quickly for you. There are things in our life that we cannot even see that God is going, I can't give you this favor yet, I can't give you this gift or this promise yet, because there's wild animals on the other side of it that I'm trying to clear out. Just trust me with the time. Oh, he's so good. So that's the timeline and favor. And yes, even if you're feeling I've been obedient to Lexus, I don't see any favor on my life, I don't see any favor on my business. Like I quit the job and I started this business, but nothing is happening. Or I left that relationship because it wasn't good for me. But God hasn't brought me my husband yet, He's clearing out the wild animals, okay? And I so understand how you feel. I always think I would rather God takes care of the wild animals than me. All right. So moving on to Deuteronomy 8 now. So these are going to be um some side notes about favor. So this is Deuteronomy 8, 14. And it says, Do not become proud at that time and forget the Lord your God, who rescued you from slavery in the land of Egypt. Moses is saying this because he knows what is about to come. After the book of Deuteronomy is the book of Joshua. And like I said, it's win after when, with Joshua leading, they conquer the entire north and south of the promised land. So Moses is saying beforehand, don't become proud. Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock. He fed you with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors. He did this to humble you and test you for your own good. He did this also you would never say to yourself, I have achieved this wealth with my own strength and energy. Remember the Lord your God. He is the one who gives you power to be successful in order to fulfill the covenant he confirmed to your ancestors with an oath. That part is so important because obedience followed by pride leads to destruction. And what's one of the biggest forms of pride today? Making an idol out of ourselves. This success is because of me. This wealth is because of me. Sometimes we don't have the success or the wealth yet because God knows if we had it, we would credit ourselves and we wouldn't credit him. So he's waiting and sharpening our character until we're ready to even hold it. Every single thing that we have that is fruitful in life is from God. And pride blocks fruit and it blocks favor. Deuteronomy 9. And I know we are reading so much today. I really hope that this is still entertaining for you. I try to make my voice entertaining when I read. I can't not read these parts because it's literally the life-giving blueprint. Um, his words are more perfect than mine. So this is Deuteronomy 9, verse 4. After the Lord your God has done this for you, don't say in your hearts, the Lord has given us this land because we are such good people. I love this part. No, it is because of the wickedness of the other nations that he is pushing them out of your way. It is not because you are so good or have such integrity that you are about to occupy their land. The Lord your God will drive out these nations ahead of you only because of their wickedness, and to fulfill the oath he swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You must recognize that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land because you are good, for you are not. You are a stubborn people. If there's someone who will tell you how it is, it's Moses. But God is speaking through him, and it's true. We think sometimes our gifts are because of us. I'm sure every time Gus is just being cute and looking at me and I give him a treat, he's like, it's because I'm so well behaved. 90% of the time he is, but then 10% of the time, I just want to. Like there's another purpose that he doesn't see. And the Israelites, same thing. God and Moses is warning the people do not think you are getting the promised land because you're good. You're not, you're stubborn. This is to clear out the wickedness, this is to glorify God, and because you are obedient, you get the favor as a byproduct. So those are some side notes. Every single time we're gonna hop into judges now. So Joshua, they're victorious. Um, then Joshua dies, and the is the third generation of the Israelites raises up, and just as we talked about earlier, they fall into idol worship, and all of that hard work, oh my gosh, I read this and I thought, do you know what your parents went through? Do you know what your grandparents who are wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years went through? Why are you throwing it away? Don't you remember what God did for your parents and grandparents? Well, they end up worshiping Baal, they are so bad. And so, what happens in the book of Judges is you will see that there's new generations of Israelites that are born every year, and they all fall into this pattern. They're faithful to God for a little bit, and then they start worshiping idols and false gods. The moment they start worshiping false gods, they lose their favor. God takes their protection and their peace, and the enemies that are still remaining in the Promised Land oppress the Israelites. They enslave them, they mistreat them, they kill them, they starve them. The Israelites, they're like, What's happening? God, God, come back, save us. And God, oh, I hate how much we can take advantage of God sometimes. God, of course, comes back and rescues his children. Even though he says, No, you're on your own, let the false gods rescue you. He still comes back and judges again and again and again and again and rescues his children. But after the Israelites get comfortable with the rescuing, they go back to worshiping false gods. And it is this crazy pattern that repeats itself. And God sends in judges, he raises up judges who are just leaders from the Israelites to lead the people back to God. But after the judges die and the Israelites don't have a leader, they fall back into the idol worship. And so peace and protection is what the favor looks like for the Israelites. And they win it when they are obedient. They earn so much favor. I don't want to say earn it, but they receive so much favor in the form of protection and peace. And God is so good because every time they fall back into idol worship and worshiping um false gods, mistreating God, God comes in, he rescues them, and he gives them more amount, he gives them a more amount of peace than the years that they were oppressed. So, for example, in Judges 3.30, it talks about how the Israelites, they were oppressed by their enemies for 18 years in the own land that they were supposed to be free in. They become slaves again. They're oppressed for 18 years, God then rescues them and gives them peace for 80 years. I love God's abundance because it always outdoes our mistakes. It always outdoes our sin. Judges 8. The Israelites, they're oppressed for seven years. God comes in and rescues them, and they have peace for 40 years. And so you can see that when they have these periods of peace, no matter how strong the enemies are, the Israelites are untouchable. And that is a beautiful gift that favor brings is you are untouchable. No one can close that door that God has opened for you. No enemy can touch you. No person can make a comment that can damage your reputation, can shake you to your core. You have God's favor. No human and definitely not the enemy is a match for that. So when you have God's favor, there's peace and protection. And it's so beautiful because it just reminds me of the fruits of the Spirit. When you're walking with the Holy Spirit, you have the fruits of the Spirit. One of those fruits is peace. To kind of wrap up these points now, disobedience, it will have you starving in the land that was meant to flow with milk and honey. If we go to Judges 6, this is verse 6. Well, the Israelites fall into disobedience and they become oppressed by the enemies known as the Midianites. And the Midianites, they were extremely, extremely cruel, uh, so cruel that the Israelites, they're starving. They have to hide food in the mountains just to be able to live and survive. But they're doing this in the land that God says, when I bring you into this land, it will be flowing with milk and honey. And it was. You remember the size of the grapes from earlier. Disobedience can leave you starving in the land that was supposed to be flowing with milk and honey. But if you think about when you give gifts, let's use the example of children. It is so fun to give a gift to a little child who is excited and grateful. You just want to give them more because they light up, they appreciate it. But what if you gave a gift to a little kid and they go, uh, nice, it'll just keep coming. Thanks, but I'm just gonna misbehave. I don't really care if my actions impact how you feel, just keep the gifts rolling. Would you want to give a little kid that gift? I'm thinking of that kid in the Polar Express, the one with the glasses, who is just really uh concerned, or not glasses, the little boy that they pick up along the way. That sounds so bad now that I think back to this movie. Um, but the little boy who really, really loves gifts in presents. Santa didn't want to give him gifts because he was gift hungry. So, yes, we should desire favor, but not desire favor without desiring God. And also, if you give a little, or if you give a gift to a little child and they abuse it, they don't take care of it, or they abuse you, they talk back to you, they disrespect you, do you want to keep giving them gifts? Probably not. So favor is a gift. And I love this quote. My mom and I were talking about this recently. There's a quote that says, Grace is for mistakes, not patterns. And what is grace? Grace is when you earn something that you don't deserve. The difference between grace and mercy. So, grace, you earn something that you don't deserve. Mercy is you don't get something that you do deserve. So let's say there's a prisoner who is supposed to be executed, but then they decide to have mercy on him and they say, okay, you can stay in prison instead of getting executed. That's mercy. Grace is when you had a family member who really mistreated you, but you forgive them anyways. They didn't earn that, but you still gave it to them. God gives us grace all the time. He forgives us. We make a mistake, we fall into sin, and he gives us grace. However, that grace, it's not this unending river that flows. Grace is for mistakes, it's not for patterns. If you keep doing something that you know is wrong and going, God, you'll just give me grace, you'll forgive me, you'll excuse this action, and you do that again and again. Uh, God will forgive this. That's going to run out because grace is not for patterns. And so, similar to obedience and favor, yes, you will still have favor because God is such a loving father, he'll give it to you even if you're disobedient at times. But if you keep the pattern of disobedience, the favor is not going to come anymore. And a more positive note, I'll say God wants to bless you. Let's end with this one. God wants to bless you. He is the most loving, giving, generous father in the world. And one of my favorite verses ever, this is in the book of Jeremiah, and it talks about how God sees us as his children. And this is Jeremiah 3.19. God says, I thought to myself, I would love to treat you as my own children. I wanted nothing more than to give you this beautiful land, the finest possession in the world. I looked forward to your calling me father, and I wanted you never to turn from me. And God is speaking to the people of Israel at this time. They had been extremely rebellious. Hello, whole Old Testament. And this is later, later in the Old Testament, after the book of Deuteronomy and Judges, and God, his heart is grieving because he's saying, I wanted to give you the most beautiful land in the world. And I wanted you to call me father, like I wanted to just nurture you as my children. God's heart aches for us to run to run to him as our loving father. And so anytime you feel that you've been in a pattern of disobedience, know that you are not alone. That's the walk of a human. But the more you run to God, the easier obedience will be. Because when the Holy Spirit is living in you and you are disobedient, it grieves your heart because the Holy Spirit is in there grieving. It doesn't just impact you, it hurts him. And when you love someone so much, you don't want to do things that hurt them. That's why the closer you get to God, the easier it feels to give up habits that you felt you never could in the past. Because they don't compare to the love that you have for the Lord anymore. And speaking of favor, be a good steward of the favor that God has given you. You have so much favor. I don't know if it is your network, I don't know if it's your beauty, if it's your health, if it's your success on social media, if it's just your protection, if it's the gift or the talent that God has given to you, if it's your time, if it's your money, steward it well. We just had that episode on stewarding. If you don't know what that word is, this will be a great episode to watch or to listen to. It's called the feminine urge to be a good steward. Manage well the favor that God has given you. It is a gift. And if this is an episode where you've been feeling, I want to give my heart to God, whether you already have, or maybe you've never prayed that prayer, to accept Jesus into your life. I'll pray it with you right now. It is the most simple prayer. And even if you feel I've already prayed this, but I've been missing God, I've been running away, I want to turn my heart back to Him. You can pray this with me now too. I love how easy God makes it for us. In Romans 10 or 10 9, it says, the Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. That is it. It's not walking a perfect life, it's not saying this 500-paragraph essay to dedicate yourself to God. It's confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart that Jesus is Lord. And so here's a simple prayer if you want to pray with me. Not my voice giving out at this point. Oh my gosh. Enemy, get out of here. Jesus, thank you for saving me. Thank you for giving me your life for my sake. Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. I believe you died for my sins and rose again. I ask you to forgive me. Come into my life, be my Lord and Savior. I surrender and give you my life. Help me to walk with you from this day forward. Amen. When I first prayed that prayer, I remember thinking, did I really pray it? I don't know. Maybe I need to say it again. No, you said it, it's done. If that was your first time praying it, I am so happy for you. Every day from this point forward, God is with you. God's always with you, but He wants to get to know you. And your decision to invite him into your life, it is the best decision that you will ever make. From this point forward, you are changed. Just let him speak to you and work on you and guide you. I hope that you have loved this episode so much. I know that this is a really, really scripture-heavy episode. It's uh more uh more logical. So I hope that you've loved this and I really love that this was a request. It really stretched me to even talk about this episode because I was scared to do it. Um, but I love it so much, and I love that we get to have these deep conversations together. I cannot wait to see you in the next episode. I love you so much. I hope that you have such a beautiful, such a blessed week, that you receive so much favor over your business, your family, your relationship, your career decision. And I can't wait to see you in the comments as well. I always love seeing you there. All right, ladies. See you next week with hopefully a very clear voice, and I love you so much.