When God's blessings become our biggest temptation
We often think of life's hardest tests as times when we don't have enough.
Not enough money to pay the bills.
Not enough patience with difficult people.
Not enough time to get everything done.
These moments of "not enough" naturally drive us to prayer, right? We find ourselves saying, "God, I don't have enough in me. You're the one who has all the things, so please help me figure this out."
But what if some of life's most dangerous tests actually come when we have more than enough?
The Surprising Test of Wealth
In the Bible, there's a message to a nation called Israel (also referred to as Ephraim in that chapter) that teaches us something unexpected about prosperity. You can read it in Hosea 10:1-3. Israel had started as slaves in Egypt with nothing but by this time in their history they were incredibly wealthy. The economy was booming, everyone had jobs, and people had extra money to spend.
Here's what's fascinating: instead of this wealth drawing them closer to God, it actually pulled them further away. The passage describes Israel as "a luxuriant vine that yields its fruit" - they weren't just getting by, they were thriving. But then it says something troubling: "The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built. As his country improved, he improved his pillars."
These altars and pillars weren't for worshiping the true God, Yahweh. They were for worshiping false gods -spiritual substitutes that promised great things but actually have no real power to deliver on their promises.
Why We Choose Fake Gods
This might seem strange to us today, bit think about it this way: When we have resources - whether money, time, or talents - we naturally want to invest them where we can control the outcome. We want guaranteed returns. We're suspicious of giving control to others, even when those "others" include the God who created and loves us.
False gods, whether ancient idols or modern substitutes, operate on what we might call "manipulative magic." They promise: "If you do this religious thing, then you're guaranteed to get this result you want." It feels safe and controllable, it even feels spiritual, but those false gods can never deliver what they promise.
But here's the reality check from Hosea 10:2: "Their heart is false." When we try to use our blessings to buy guaranteed outcomes, we're lying to ourselves about what really matters.
The Hidden Pattern in Our Hearts
There's a principle we see throughout the Bible and in our own lives: humans naturally spend wealth on things that increase their own personal control. Left to ourselves, we invest our resources - whether money, time, or energy - in ways that make us feel more in charge of our circumstances.
We don't always know what will actually give us more control, but we have ideas. Sometimes we spend money on substances to control how we feel. Sometimes we spend it on security systems to control our safety. Sometimes we spend it on image management to control how others see us.
Here's the troubling part: when we spend our blessings in self-confident ways, we start taking every gift for granted. We begin to think we deserve what we've received. We forget that everything good in our lives - from our next breath to our morning coffee - is actually a gift coming down from God in Heaven (James 1:17).
When this happens, we often use God's blessings to harden our hearts against his love. We think, "I received these good things from God, but I don't trust him to tell me how to use them."
The Alternative: Choosing God-Dependence
The core message here is simple but challenging: we must choose God-dependence over self-confidence in both easy and hard times.
In hard times, this choice feels more natural. When we're struggling, we know we need help. But when God blesses us with abundance, we can start thinking we're pretty capable on our own.
This is why Jesus taught us to pray "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). It's a daily choice to depend on God rather than on what we think we can control.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
Later in Hosea 10:11-12, God uses a farming metaphor to explain the difference between easy blessing and meaningful work. He describes Israel as "a trained calf that loved to thresh" - basically a cow that got to walk around in circles eating grain all day while working. It was the dream job: eat while you walk!
But God says, "I will put Ephraim to the yoke. Judah must plow." Plowing is different. It's hot, dirty, difficult work out in the field with nothing to eat and no immediate rewards.
The point isn't that God wants to make life harder for no reason. It's that meaningful growth - both personal and spiritual - often requires challenging work that doesn't come with immediate gratification.
Our Response as a Community
At Neighborhood Church, we've been wrestling with these questions practically. We've been blessed in many ways - with resources, with community, with a facility that was paid for by the sacrificial giving of people who came before us. We have coffee every morning, smooth roads to drive on, and food security that most people throughout history couldn't imagine.
So what do we do with these blessings?
We're launching something called the Grove Initiative - a collaborative effort with our partner churches in Lakeland and Sebring. Over the next ten years, we're working together to train 100 new leaders, plant three new churches, and see 1,000 people come to faith and be baptized in Florida.
These aren't small goals, and we can't achieve them through self-confident planning or guaranteed formulas. They require the kind of God-dependence that the people of Israel forgot.
Three Ways to Choose God-Dependence
Whether you're dealing with abundance or scarcity, here are three practical ways to choose God-dependence:
1. Prayer - A small step towards getting help that we usually overlook is actually asking for help. Many of us find it difficult to ask for help even from friends, let alone from God. But prayer is how we acknowledge that we can't do much of anything on our own. We're going to be using a resource we’ve written called 3-2-1: A Call to Prayer (also available as a free download from our website) and taking some time over the next couple of weeks to explore this call to prayer as a sermon series.
2. Obedience - When we ask God for help and he shows up with instructions, we need the courage to follow them even when they don't match our original plans. God may have a different vision for your life than the one you're currently imagining, but we won’t get to God’s plan if we don’t follow His instructions.
3. Collaboration - None of us can walk this journey alone. As Philippians 2:4-5 puts it: "Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus." That means as we seek to obey Jesus individually, we do so mindful that He is working in all of his children. We need to embrace a spirit of humble collaboration with others as we tackle this new season of ministry together.
The Bottom Line
Whether you're in a season of plenty or a season of want, the same spiritual principle applies: we must choose God-dependence over self-confidence. This isn't always easy, but it's always worth it.
The test of wealth isn't about having money or resources. It's about what we do with whatever we've been given. Do we use our blessings to build our own kingdoms of control, or do we hold them with open hands, ready to invest them in what God cares about?
The choice is ours to make, every single day.
