Why Gods people get blessed

Luke 2:36-40 

36 And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity;

37 And she was a widow of about fourscore and four years, which departed not from the temple, but served God with fastings and prayers night and day.

38 And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem.

39 And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth.

40 And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.

When reading this chapter, we quickly realize that this was a very special passage, it is part of the story of Jesus birth. The Christmas story is of couse one of my favorites, and this section is one of the more overlooked parts of it. So, even though its august I beleive this story has something for us at any point in the year! 

Anna is really one of the more minor characters of the Bible, but just by looking at these few verses we can see that she lived an extraordinary life. She was married for a short time to her husband, but when he passed away she dedicated herself entirely to the work of God. I would assume that she didnt have any children. And its unclear if she was eighty four when she met Jesus, or if she had actually been a widow for eighty four years which would make her well above one hundred years old when this happened, which is certainly not impossible. In either case anna had served God in the temple for not years but decades!!

Today we are talking about being faithful to God, and Anna was a woman who was faithful! For at least over fifty years anna practically lived in the temple. She trusted God and served him year after year, decade after decade. She was the epitome of faithfulness. 

There are two main ingredients to faithfulness in my mind regulaity and singularity. 

For a while my little sister has worked at a coffee shop in their town. Not only is it the only coffee shop in town, they also serve really good coffee. They have plenty of regulars.  Not only do many of the customers know my sister by name, she knows alot of their coffee orders by memory and she can guess what she’ll need to make just by seeing their familiar cars pull up to the drive through window.  Now, if I lived in the same town as my family, I would probably go to  that coffee shop on a regular basis too, but I live fourteen hours away and its impossible for me to be a regular. 

Frequecy is a crucial part of faithfulness. When someone is faithful they show a regularity in their actions they keep doing the same thing habitually. When someone is faithful they are called a regular. You can count on them rain or shine to show up and do their part because they are faithful. God wants His people to be regulars both in the house of God and in their personal devotion. 

Singularity 

The other part of faithfulness is singularity. 

While there are lots of regulars To the coffee shop that my sister works at, Im sure they occasionally do buy coffee elsewhere. In a marriage relationship, however, faithfulness speaks of being singularly devoted to one person. Imagine someone trying to defend an extra marital affair by saying that they really were faithful because they still spent time with their husband or wife on a regular basis. It would be laughable. True faithfulness requires being singularly devoted to one person exclusively. it is this example that God used in scripture over and over and over again to illustrate the kind of relationship that he wanted to have with His people. God wanted his people to serve Him exclusively, leaving behind and completely rejecting the gods of egypt, canaan and babylon. He wanted them to serve Him and no one else. This was the kind of faithfulness that God was constantly pleading with Isreal to give Him all throughout the Old Testament and it is the kind of faithfulness that he excpects from christians today. Although we dont have idols carved from wood or stone that we worship, any number of things might become more important to us than God, and if anything has become more important to us than God it has then become an idol. Sports, beauty, materialism, ungodly relationships, even work, and a desire to have more money can become idols to us if we let them shove God out of His rightful place as number one in our hearts.

Back to anna 

Annas life demonstrated faithfulness both in regularity (she basically lived at the temple for decades) amd singularity. The Bible says she fasted and prayed night and day! God had her complete and total devotion. I don’t believe that there was anything in her life more important than God, and what He wanted her to do. 

There is one thing that is important to notice. Anna did not waste her life in service to God; she invested it. She would receive a huge honor and blessing because of her faithfulness. Not only would she meet face to face her Redeemer and Messiah, she would be  immortalized forever in Gods word. 2,000 years after she lived people would still remember her story. 

I need to clarify something real quick. we sometimes get a mixed up idea that being faithful to God somehow earns us blessings, or conversly, some like to say that people who beleive we should maintain a regular faithfulnesss to God somehow beleive that faithfulness is a means of earning blessings. It isn’t. It simply doesnt work that way. However it is undeiable that people who do prioritize God in their lives get blessed. It is not something that is earned, but it is something that does really happen. By grace through faith. There are several reasons for this. 

Gods ways are the best! 

In Gods word He gives alot of commandments to his people. There are many principles and truths in the word of God for Christians to live by. Some people shun them, or gloss them over, saying that Gods word is antiquated or that God doesnt care anymore if we go against his word. But let me ask you this, if you had been given an opportunity to learn how to use and iphone from steve jobs would you have taken it? I know I would have. Iphones are powerful machines and I could probably use mine alot more efficiently. In the same way, God is the creator of life and He knows all about how to use it best! He knows what habits and what actions will lead us to heartbreak and he had told us to avoid them. He also knows what will lead to prosperity and blessing and He has told us what those things are in His word. God did not tell us how to live to ruin our fun or make our lives harder. No. He simply knows what is best for us. He is the creator, and he knows how life works. If we are faithful to Him blessings do follow. 

Propability 

Part of the reason that anna was blessed was a simple mathematical propability. The simple fact is if the messiah was going to be born anywhere between bc 60 and ad 10, anna was probably going to see him. the Messiah was going to be a Jew, all Jewish babies were dedicated at the temple, and Anna was almost always at the temple. 

She was in the right place, alot of the time. Gods house is where he chooses to speak to, and bless his people. Anna had a greater likelihood of receiving the blessing of personally meeting the Messiah because she was in the place that he would likely frequent. In the same way, God chooses to speak to his people and give them the encouragement they need in the form of a local body of beleivers and through the ministry of pastors, teachers and evangelists. Now Ive heard of people being saved at rock concerts, or receiving spiritual encouragement from a sign, going down the road. But the great majority of our blessings and encouragement from God come because we were in the place that He regularly makes Himself known. In the House of God. 

They are Promised 

Again,  the Blessing of God on your life is never earned. But they are promised. They are promised to those who obey, they are promised to those who beleive and they are promised to those who ask God to work in their lives. 

Acts 5: 32 And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him

Deuteronomy  28:1-6

28 And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth:

2 And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God.

3 Blessed shalt thou be in the city, and blessed shalt thou be in the field.

4 Blessed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground, and the fruit of thy cattle, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

5 Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store.

6 Blessed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and blessed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

     Being faithful to Gods plan for our lives, being faithful to keep his comandments,  and doing what he asks is a crucial part of being a Christian. Yes God does ask things of us, sometimes even very difficult things. But He also promises great blessing to those who trust him and obey him.