I once lived firmly in the belief that when I obeyed God, He would bless me. And when I didn’t, the opposite “cause-and-effect” principle applied; He would surely make me regret my disobedience. I hear Christians say, “I want to be careful to obey God so He blesses my family”; or “I don’t want to miss out on His blessing.” Does this pattern of cause-and-effect thinking sound familiar? It is the same old burdensome thinking the Israelites engaged in under the Old Covenant (which we refer to as the Law). Under this old agreement, blessing or cursing was directly connected to how the Israelites conducted themselves.
What is the typical thought process and logic, under this old thinking, when things appear to be going wrong in our life? Usually the believer begins to get anxious about their relationship with God. How have they displeased Him? I hear one Christian after another say, “I wonder what I’m doing wrong? God is not blessing me.” This old thinking eventually leads us to believe that God is either smiling or frowning down at us depending on how we are acting. He is that stern Taskmaster, or that “Big Eye” in the sky, watching everything we do. If He likes what He sees, He pulls the blessing lever. If He doesn’t like what He sees, He hits the lightning switch, or hauls out the “big club,” depending on how long we’ve been acting in a manner that displeases Him. He is not averse to hiding Himself on a cloud somewhere, ready to squish us with His thumb for the least provocation.
God’s new agreement with us is much different. Under this New Covenant of Grace, God has already given (to every believer) one hundred percent of His blessings. Let’s take a look at this in scripture. Ephesians 1:3 reads, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us [past tense] with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Paul says that God has taken every spiritual blessing contained in the heavens and placed them all in Christ. This is a completed historical fact.
For the Christian, where is Christ? God has placed Christ in us. It is no longer a matter of God giving His blessings, or withholding them, depending on how we are acting. What remains is our progressive realization of all God’s blessings in our daily living. It is experiencing, step by step, the freedoms discussed in this book, which are but a tiny fraction of all God’s blessings in Christ. This is the good news in God’s New Covenant of Grace.
From the book, "A Different Place," The peace and freedom that comes from knowing: God has done it all—He is all we need, pages 175-176.