God acts lovingly toward us all the time, but He does not promise to bless us unconditionally. To many Americans today, “God Bless America!” is a mantra that is often repeated. It is certainly an attractive desire. But it is not based on a solid foundation. God does not bless us merely because we ask Him to. He blesses us when we meet His requirements.<\/p>\n
God promised David that he would have descendants always sitting upon the throne as long as they walked with God in the same manner David had. David was certainly far from perfect, but he loved God. When he sinned, he always humbly returned to God in repentance. As a result, God was pleased to bless him and his family.<\/p>\n
The kings who followed David often counted on God’s blessing but neglected God’s provision. They assumed that God would support them and protect their nation regardless of how they led God’s people. They eventually learned the painful truth, that when they turned their back on God, He would withdraw His presence from them as well.<\/p>\n
Have you been assuming God would bless you? Is your love for God like that of King David’s?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Therefore, Lord God if Israel, now keep what You promised Your servant David my father, saying, “You shall not fail to have a man sit before Me on the throne of Israel, only if your sons take heed to their way, that they walk before Me as you have walked before Me” 1 Kings 8:25<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-devotionals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15406,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4789\/revisions\/15406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackabyleadership.org\/app\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}