Walking in the Favour of the Lord

In the plan of the Lord we find that He always desires that we as His children be before Him, this is in front of Him where He can see us. We cannot believe in ourselves more than we can entrust our lives with the Lord. Therefore, we need to trust the Lord with our lives. Sometimes, we may find ourselves on the wrong side of the Lord, but when we are cognisant of our justification, and then we won’t move away from God’s favour. We will always be on favoured ground by faith.

The bible says, “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, ‘I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless’” (Genesis 17:1). The Lord uses this favourable expression towards Abraham denoting that as Abraham is before Him, he is on a favoured ground. If the Lord shows His back to you then it means you have not found favour before His sight.

We have these verses from the book of Isaiah: “Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1-2). These verses show us how we would be before the Lord if we were not justified by faith. The Lord would not be able to see us because of our sins and even when we pray He would not hear us. 

This is the situation the people of the world suffer, yet they depict themselves better than us. When we (the justified) call upon the Lord, He pays attention to us and provides everything we need. We are just like Abraham whom the Lord told him to walk in front of His face and be blameless. God uses this expression to Abraham that he walk first before His eyes, where He can see him and then Abraham will be blameless. I love it! The Lord was supposed to say to Abraham, ‘Be blameless and you will walk before Me.’

At least this how I think God had to speak to Abraham. But the way God says it, it’s so positive in such way that even preachers today think this is too simple and God meant something else. Whenever preachers find that the way of God is simple, they will try to put certain things by adding their own instructions which are not even backed up by the bible. For instance, the bible says, “I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16).

Even here, it’s positive that we should walk in the Spirit first so that we may not fulfil the lust of the flesh. So, if this is preached, certain preachers won’t preach it the way it's written but will seek the meaning that will instil doubts to believers. However, this is positive, we walk first in the Spirit then when we walk in the Spirit, we won’t fulfil the lusts of the flesh. The Lord wants us to have positive mentality to always know that we are justified by faith and by not our own merits.

When we know that we are justified, we will be blessed by the Lord. I want us to look at this allegory about Obed-Edom. The bible says, “So David would not move the ark of the LORD with him into the City of David; but David took it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months. And the LORD blessed Obed-Edom and all his household” (2 Samuel 6:10-11).

This whole event of the Ark of the Covenant was alluding to Christ. First things first, the Ark of the Covenant is always the picture of the presence of the Lord. Now, David seeing that a man by the name of Uzzah died trying to block the ark from falling, he was moved with awe to divert the destination of the Ark of the Lord. Therefore, the Ark was kept in the house of the man by the name of Obed-Edom. This is not what the Lord commanded them to do, but David did this because he was conscious of his sins.

Now rest assured, if the Ark went straight to the house of David, he would be blessed by the Lord. The Lord said to Abraham that he must walk before His sight and be blameless. In essence, in order for Abraham to produce the good fruits, he had to come to God although he was in sin. Therefore, if David knew this, he would not have diverted the Ark of the Lord to the house of Obed-Edom. The Lord that His favour does not depend on our merits, He then blessed the whole family regardless of how they were. 

Remember, David decided after seeing Uzzah dying because of the Ark that the Ark should not come to his house in Jerusalem. I want to however, discuss the name of Obed-Edom so that we can understand why the Lord blessed his household. The name Obed-Edom means worker of Edom. However, the word Edom is the same word as Adam meaning a ruddy (reddish in colour), and also the word Adam is used for man in the idea of a human being. The word Edom also means red just like the word Adam. Therefore, I suggest that the name Obed-Edom means the worker of man. Now, who is the worker of man? Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour!

Now the Ark being in the house of this figure Obed-Edom, it’s more like the Lord is saying to us by the Spirit that, where My Son is, My presence is there in the form of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the household of Obed-Edom is the church of Christ, because today if you are saved you are numbered among the family of God. If you want this blessing my dear reader, become part of the family of God. This is not the matter of you trying hard to be perfect and come when you quit doing all immoral things which you know they are against the word of God.

Therefore, the whole context about Obed-Edom is about the blessing of the cross. The meaning of the cross as I shared this long time ago, is that the vertical post represents God and the horizontal beam represents the Church of Christ. The Lord’s blessing is upon the body of Christ through the finished work of Christ His Son on the cross. Therefore, if in the body of Christ, there is anyone sick, they must receive because the work is done on the cross. Any kind of discomfort in their lives they must know that it’s not the will of the Lord for their lives because the work is done on the cross.

When all is said and done, we must be cognisant of this very fact that, God wants us to be in His house worshipping in His house. I know that many people today have been disappointed by the house of worship and they have considered praying in their houses and reading their bibles in their houses. As much as they could be meaning well, but it be could harmful to the faith because the faith of God in us should be rekindled. The apostle Paul encourages that we should forsake meeting together as the church (read Hebrews 10:25).

When we are gathered together we exhort one another, we also get to assist one another with certain things. Therefore, the blessing of the household of Obed-Edom is for the church of Christ not for certain people who attend a certain church. In essence, the Lord is saying to us that the body of Christ is blessed if Christ is the centre pillar of their lives. How can one make Jesus the centre pillar? When they give up their own strength and allow Christ to take over their lives. As the vertical post of the cross is in middle, so Christ should be in the middle and we are around Him.

I want to touch on this while we are still discussing Obed-Edom, the bible says he is a Gittite. The word Gittite has the idea of winepress. For clarification, winepress is a device used to extract juice from crushed grapes during wine making (Sources: Wikipedia). In Israel during bible times they would crush the grapes with their feet in the winepress to produce this juice. Good people, we know that whenever the bible is talking about the wine, it’s alluding to the blood of Jesus.

Therefore, Obed-Edom who is the picture of Jesus in the form of a servant of man, He gave up His blood for us. Jesus allowed Himself to be crushed and pressed to shed His blood that through His blood all mankind may have all their sins forgiven. When we are cognisant of this, we rest and walk before the Lord and when we rest, the Lord is able to bless us. As we start this year acknowledging God’s justification by faith, we will also be greatly blessed because we are forgiveness-conscious. Look my dear reader, David delayed his blessing by being sin-conscious, if he was forgiveness-conscious then he would have been blessed earlier.

When we are on the favourable ground of the Lord, the Lord will never say to us what is written in the book of Isaiah 59. Our position in the Lord is fully secured by the blood of Jesus on the cross. Jesus said, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (John 10:27-29).

When the Father hands you over to Jesus, you will never be lost but you will have eternal life. Therefore ladies and gentlemen, we must always be cognisant of our favourable position we have in God. The bible says, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (John 2:1). Now as you know this above verse as a believer, the bible also says, “Or do you despite the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? (Romans 2:4).

Paul by the Spirit says that don’t we know that God’s goodness leads us to repentance? Oh I love it! It’s not our goodness or merits that make us repent but God’s goodness towards us. God first introduced the Law of Moses for His people to know when they have done wrong. Now through Christ, He blesses us first while we are in our sins and when we see His blessings we run to Him abandoning our sinful habits. So God is good to us although living is sin causes one to delay their blessings like how King David delayed his blessing by being conscious of his sin. 

We don’t promote licentious, but God will not wait until we are perfect. If when we are still in our sins begin to walk before His face, we will be blessed. I know that someone might say there are many people who are living a blissful life although not being a part of the body of Christ. Let me clarify something, when one is blessed by God, they know that they are blessed by God. Then those are the same people who will run to God even when they were bit deceived and see things go south. When you are blessed because you performed a certain dark ritual, you will honour that practice and not God although you can overtly say it was God. 

The bible says, “You have multiplied the nation and increased its joy; they rejoice before You according to the joy of harvest, as men rejoice when they divide the spoil” (Isaiah 9:3). Now I’m concluding on this topic. The word before here in this verse alludes to the fact that the Lord wants us to be in His sight and it’s the same word used in Genesis 17 for before Me and also used for His face in Isaiah 59. The word there is pânîym (פָּנִים) which is the face. Therefore whenever we are called to be before the Lord we are called to be before His face. No one likes to look at something abhorrent. So as God, if He can adjure you to come before His face, it’s because you have found favour before His face because of the blood of Jesus.

The bible said, “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16). We must come to the Lord in boldness not heeding to the opinions of others about us. When the Lord blesses us we rejoice before Him giving all the glory for the world to see our rejoicing in the Lord. 

Stay justified in good health