2 Chronicles 24:20 (NLT) Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands and keep yourselves from prospering? You have abandoned the Lord, and now he has abandoned you!”

King Joash was crowned king at the age of seven. He should have been dead because his evil grandmother, Athalia, had all of her male grandchildren killed when her son, King Ahaziah, died after just reigning for one year. She killed all the heirs to the throne because she wanted to reign as queen. But Joash's older sister hid him away so that he wouldn't be killed. Six years later when he was seven years old, his sister's husband, Jehoiada, brought him out and with the help of other officials that were in on the plan, they crowned him king. The Bible tells us that throughout Jehoiada the priest's lifetime, Joash did what was pleasing in God's sight. But as soon as Jehoiada died, everything changed. Some sinful leaders of Judah came to King Joash to advise him to abandon the Temple of God and worship Asherah poles and idols instead. Without Jehoiada around to advise him otherwise, Joash went along with the evil advice.

The king and the people all turned their hearts towards evil and wouldn't turn back to the Lord, even though He sent prophets to bring them back to Him. But they wouldn't listen. Finally, Zechariah, Jehoiada's son and a prophet himself, delivered the prophesy above. The message that he delivered was a timeless one that applies to us all today. Disobedience keeps us from prospering. Disobedience leads to great trouble and disaster. Even though God judges sin, it's not only His judgement that gets us in trouble. It's the consequences of our sin that causes most of the pain and sorrow. I believe that many times God's judgement is to let us do what we are bent on doing to then face the bad consequences of our own doing. If there is a sure way to not prosper, it's to disobey God.

Many of us have many stories about the times that we have disobeyed God and the resulting chaos in our lives that came because of it. The worst times in my own life that I can recall were as a direct result of disobeying the Lord and His Word. Nothing good ever came of it. On the other hand, I have never met anyone that had a complaint about living in obedience to God. No one has ever spoken to me about the regrets they have because of their obedience to the Lord. On the contrary, we can all testify that when we have lived in obedience to God, we have prospered. So the question remains, why do anything else than obey? Why hold ourselves back from prospering? It doesn't make any sense, but it's because of the sin that is in us. That's why we need to stay close to Jesus all day, every day so that we will have the strength and power to living according to God's will and His Word...and prosper! Prosperity is simply the thriving condition of your soul and your spirit from being in communion with Jesus. It's a state of being that no matter what you are going through, it is well with your soul. Don't ever hold yourself back from prospering in the Lord. Live in Him and allow Him to live and reign in you so that you will have the will to obey and never be kept from prospering!

Pastor Joey Vazquez