I had a look at the underlying Hebrew and Greek (from the Septuagint, a translation of the OT into Greek) for the verses that were mentioned in the original post. The Hebrew word translated "favor" is "ratsown," which means "pleasure, delight, favour, goodwill, acceptance, will" (click the link for more info). The translators of the Septuagint uses the Greek words "thelema" ("what one wishes or has determined shall be done;  will, choice, inclination, desire, pleasure") and "charis" (the famous Greek word for "grace"). 

I also like it when the hand of God gives us good things like good weather, a raise, a good parking spot, etc. In a world of birthpangs and thorns and thistles, such gifts are foretastes of the age to come, and all of them should be treasured.

Yet, while I agree that we always should be repenting---putting off the old self and putting on the new self---we should remember that God is favorable to us for the sake of His Son apart from our works.

To pursue God's favor is to pursue something that already has been freely given to us in Christ! We don't need to work for it or clean ourselves up for it. God Himself has done the work; He has sanctified us. Our lives of faith here and now are, in a sense, "catching up to" what we already are in Christ and what we will fully experience in the age to come. 

A wonderful passage to meditate upon that is chock full of "favor" words is Ephesians 1:3-14. In it, not only are "grace" and "will" used, but also "blessing," "chose," "predestined," "adoption," "lavished," etc. All of this is ours in Christ.

Finally, I would note that there are times when we do not feel especially favored (due to sickness, money issues, persecution, etc.), yet indeed we are still favored by God for Jesus' sake. A classic Biblical example that I think of is Job, who lost nearly everything even though he was "blameless and upright." Nevertheless, in Job's life God was working all things together for good, and in the end God once again revealed His favor in terms of family, riches, etc. along with the salvation of Job's foolish friends (Job 42). As I blogged about here, God sometimes is pleased to "hide" his favor under a "frowning providence." That is why as a Lutheran I am zealous for the right preaching of the Gospel and the right administration of the Sacraments, because through these special means I most clearly see (through the eyes of faith) God's deep and abiding "yes" in everything.

Very insighful post, Sue. I especially liked this: When I can clearly see that God is not blessing what I am doing, the problem is certainly not with God, but with me. And there probably needs to be a change.

While our relationship with the Lord is often called a "walk," I like to think of it as a dance: more sensitivity to his lead is called for as we match him step for step. 

Here I see that if the husband does not obey the scriptures his prayers can be hindered.

This verse says that the prayers of the righteous are heard.  Although I do agree that our righteousness is totally in Jesus Christ.  No disagreement there :)

28:9 He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer [shall be] abomination.

Need I say more :)

Same deal here.

Those are the best verses I could find that our prayers can be hindered by our disobedience.  As far as the favor, I was really saying that we have the benefits of being an heir to the throne of grace.  That we are highly favored because the Father sees His Son in us.  Not because of anything we have done, or deserve.  I think God wants to bless us, but I think we are the ones who look at things from a human prospective and often miss out on these blessings.  I am not saying that we will be wealthy or always have things go our way.  But I am saying that God wants to bless us in our circumstances.  I have seen God just move people right over in order to shed His favor on me.  I am not saying that I deserve this, but that He has done it and I am blessed!  I am far from rich in man's eyes.  But we all have great riches in Christ Jesus.  I will let you know if I come up with anything else.

Thanks for keeping me in the Word!

OK, let's talk about these verses. I'll add a few more of my own, too! Hopefully my response won't spiral out of control in terms of length and content.

As a starting point, though, I would note Luke 18:9-14. The Pharisee had a number of good works, while the tax collector only had his sin. Nevertheless, it was the tax collector who was justified, not the Pharisee. Being justified by faith alone, the tax collector had all the favor of God that one could ever have, as I tried to express earlier by citing Ephesians 1:3-14. God is not saying to him, "Well, you're kind of favored in that you're justified, but to really get in on my favor you have to get rid of certain sins in your life, pray a certain way, etc."

Additionally, I would note Galatians 3:10-14, James 2:8-13. These verses say that the Law (i.e., commandments) of God should be considered as a whole package, and if we break the Law at any point then we are accountable for all of it and are cursed apart from Christ. I think that our tendency, even as Christians, is to pick and choose certain aspects of the Law and feel like we are doing "pretty good" or "not so good" on a given day depending upon how well we keep or don't keep those aspects. For example, if I give the homeless guy on the corner a dollar I'm doing "pretty good," if I take him to lunch then I'm "doing great," but if I blow him off then I feel bad about it later. While a piecemeal approach to the Law may be helpful for our self-confidence, I think that it radically underestimates the problem of sin in our lives as well as radically underestimates the greatness of God's grace and favor towards us for the sake of Jesus. At its worst, it can confuse Law and Gospel to such an extent that the Gospel effectively becomes Law, producing self-righteous Christians who deep down really think that they are going to be saved because they voted a certain way or whatever.

All of that said, I agree with you that the righteousness that we need to consider in James 5:16, Proverbs 15:29 and Proverbs 15:8 is the righteousness of Christ, since we are not righteous in ourselves (i.e., in our flesh). These verses are great sources of encouragement that God hears us for Jesus' sake!

As for Proverbs 28:9, it may be worth noting that "the law" is "torah" in Hebrew, and as such it may be referring to the entirety of the five books of Moses (which contain both God's commandments as well as His promises of grace through faith) rather than just God's commandments. Yes, to refuse to listen to God's Word is to be alienated from His life and left with nothing but His wrath because our lack of faith and our works of disobedience. But, this does not mean that God is not gracious to sinners who trust in His promises.

For 1 Peter 3:7, I don't think that it is saying "if you don't treat your wife with honor, then God is not going to listen to your prayers," as though God were dealing with us "transactionally." Rather, where there is strife and lack of harmony between husband and wife there is lack of faith-filled prayer (in particular, praying together).

This statement about "faith-filled" prayer allows me to get to transition to another key point that I wish to make. Consider James 1:5-8, 1 John 3:19-24. These verses talk about receiving or not receiving gifts from God. What is the key issue in these verses? Faith! If we do not have faith, but instead we doubt, then we do not receive. On the other hand, if we trust in God, if we have confidence in God, if we are not condemned in our own hearts, if we know that as sinners we can confess our sins to God and He will forgive us (1 John 1:6-10), then we receive.

So, does sin cause our prayers to be hindered and cause us to lose favor with God? Yes and no. Grace is not "transactional" in the sense of being available to us in greater or lesser degrees depending upon whether we have greater or fewer sins in our lives. But, if our sin causes us to turn away from God's promises through the Gospel, causes us to doubt the good news that God has saved us because of what Christ has done, causes us to hide in the trees with our fig-leaf coverings rather than plead God for His mercy like the tax collector did, then we indeed are hindered in our prayers and have rejected God's grace.

Finally, I'll expand a little bit on what I was getting at with the example of Job. Consider Matthew 5:2-11, Luke 6:20-26, 2 Corinthians 1:3-10, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Philippians 1:29-30, 1 Peter 4:12-19. I think that sometimes we can misunderstand what God's grace looks like or how it operates in our lives. We can be tempted to think that if God has not blessed us in a certain way then He is not blessing us at all or that somehow we have lost His favor. He is not so stingy with His grace! But, we can lose sight of His larger purposes, and we can misunderstand His greater gifts.

Therefore, since we sin daily in many ways in thought, word and deed, it is critical that our faith is continually nourished by the good news of the Gospel, just as it was created by the Gospel (Romans 10:14-17, Galatians 3:1-6). Then we can have confidence in His favor no matter how great our sin is or how poorly our lives are going.

You are so right about it all, God does work in great ways there are so many for me. All I now is I love the lord with all my heart.

I'm confused by the statement "But I don't think It is just gonna fall out of the sky...We must recieve it." Isn't it precisely the case that grace "falls out of the sky"?

"Jesus Christ...for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man..." (Nicene Creed)

I'm finding that God's favor toward me is mostly in the form of character development.  I mean that in the best possible way.  What better favor can there be from God than to bear the image of His Son?  This is a priviledge beyond any compare - that I can respond to circumstances in my life as Christ would in my situation.  Keep the Lexus, I'll take humility.  Money is OK, but how about patience?  The inner peace Christ develops in me is more valuable that anything.  It isn't an easy process, but it's definitely worth it.

Yes, God indeed blesses us by conforming us to His Son's image! Being patient and rejoicing in tough circumstances, having peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:4-7)---these are God's greater gifts! When Paul talks about doing all things through Christ, he's saying that he has learned to be content in plenty and in want---knowing that God will take care of him. This, too, is a gift of God.

Just because we know grace/favor/blessings exist, that doesn't mean it is going to overwhelm our lives. We have to acknowledge it, yes! But even more than that accept it, recieve what is promised to us. 

Ex:If there is a huge cake (any flavor you like) sitting on a table in the same room as you, you'll see it of course...because it's there and there will be other people eating it and you can probably smell it, but you will never taste that cake until you go get yourself a piece or better yet, accept the piece that is being offered to you. You dont have to taste a cake to know (acknowldge) that it is sweet, but to taste that it is sweet you're gonna have to eat some.

In the same way we know that grace/favor/blessings/ect. exist, we see it in others lives and can maybe since (smell) a liitle aroma of it in our own, but until we recieve it. (go get our piece(no size limit)), all those thing cannot come into full fruition in our lives. It is there being offered to us, but we must accept it... (IMO)

Tabitha, I agree that we must receive God's grace/favor and not reject it. I think of Luke 18:17, John 1:12-13, Romans 5:17, Acts 2:38-39 regarding receiving God's favor, and I think of Luke 7:29-30, Luke 10:16, John 12:48, 2 Corinthians 6:1, Galatians 2:21 regarding rejecting God's favor, receiving it "in vain," and "nullifying it" (i.e., rejecting it, setting it aside).

But, I think that your cake analogy illustrates where we have a disagreement (if we do disagree). You said "accept the piece that is being offered to you." Equating "accept" with "receive," I agree with that part of the analogy, because in that part the cake is being given to a person as a free gift. In other places in the analogy, however, the cake is sitting on a table in the room and does a person no good (or very little good) unless he gets himself a piece; there, instead of the cake being a gift that is given by someone else to a person, it is good stuff to which a person must help himself. That's an important difference.

I also have Ephesians 2:1-10 in mind, in particular

Dead people don't get themselves anything---they're dead! To be saved by grace is to be made alive by God's choice and actions. We are made alive because He gives us life, not because life is floating out there somewhere on its own and we take it for ourselves by our own choice and in our own power.

So it is with anything of God's grace. See also, for example, the spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:1-11:

What do you think?

Jam,  We are most definately on the same page when you said "Dead people don't get themselves anything---they're dead! To be saved by grace is to be made alive by God's choice and actions. We are made alive because He gives us life, not because life is floating out there somewhere on its own and we take it for ourselves by our own choice and in our own power." 

Have you ever read the Sovereignty of God by Author Pink?  It is the best book I have ever read outside of the Word of God. 

I have not read anything by Pink, but "The Sovereignty of God" is available online. I have heard of him before, though, because I went to a Calvinistically-oriented Baptist church when I was growing up.

I am no longer a Calvinist, but there are some similarities between Calvinism and Lutheranism. In particular, they both stress that people are unable to "choose" God on their own---that it is God alone who brings people to saving faith in Christ. See here (and other pages as well) on the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod site for further discussion. I like how Luther put it in his explanation in the Small Catechism (an official Lutheran confessional document) of the third article (regarding the Holy Spirit) of the Apostles' Creed:

I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true.