Nehemiah 2:20. The faithful will always achieve success through God. God desires to bless all of us. In the Bible are recorded hundreds and hundreds of God's promises to bless us. All we need to do is have faith in His promises. His Son, Jesus Christ, has given us all a means to achieve success in this world and in the hereafter.

Many Christians can get caught up in religious routines such as going to church, giving to the poor, using religious sayings, and so on. These good works can start to substitute for our faith in God. It is not our good works that keep us in relationship with God. It is our continuing faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord that enables us to have continuing grace with God.

Joshua 7:12. When you defy God and go your own way with your insatiable desires, you lose your blessings from God. This is what happen when Achan took the accursed things out of Jericho.

Joshua 7:1. When Israel had taken Jericho and Achan acted on his insatiable desire and took the gold and silver from Jericho, God's anger was raised against the entire camp of Israel. When Achan could not control his insatiable desire, he offended God.

Isaiah 59:2. God cannot be in the presence of sin. A key Christian aspect of the definition of deception is that it is a sin. Deception is no more than a lie. It hides the truth. When we deceive people, God separates Himself from us. He will neither show His face nor listen to us when we are spreading deception. When deception is present there is no justice, nor truth.

Deuteronomy 22:22. The basic definition of adultery is from Deuteronomy 22:22. Adultery is “…lying with a woman married to an husband…” Adultery is any time a married person has sex with someone outside the marriage. God considers adultery a sin and it is one of the ten commandments (Exodus 20:14, “Thou shalt not commit adultery”).

1 Corinthians 7:11. Another option in coping with adultery is to separate. In this case separation from your spouse for a season may heal the relationship (1 Corinthians 7:11, “But and if she depart, let her remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her husband: and let not the husband put away his wife”).

2 Samuel 7:15. Any discipline to a child must be done in mercy. We discipline a child not to judge the child. We discipline the child to help the child to create good habits. Discipline should always be done in mercy and not for the sole purpose of punishment. We must have mercy on a child just as God has mercy on us.

Joshua 7:24. We must separate ourselves from sin just as Israel separated themselves from everything associated with the trouble maker Achan.

Joshua 7:12. Not accepting personal responsibility for your sin, separates you from God. God departs from you when you do not acknowledge that you have sinned. His spirit leaves you. With unacknowledged sin, we live defeated lives and cannot face the enemies in our lives. The only way for us to get God back in our lives is by accepting personal responsibility for our sins.