A Few Examples of
Things Incompatible with God’s Righteousness

General
Lust
Greed
Selfishness
Covetousness
Slavery to Pleasure
Laziness
General

Matthew 5:20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, there is no way you will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Acts 24:25  . . . he [Paul] reasoned about righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come . . .

Romans 1:29-32 being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, malice; full of envy . . . who, knowing the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death . . .

Romans 6:13 Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Romans 8:4-5 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom.

Galatians 5:19-21 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

Ephesians 5:5 Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.

1 Thessalonians 2:10 You are witnesses with God, how holy, righteously, and blamelessly we behaved ourselves toward you who believe.

James 5:16 Confess your offenses to one another, and pray . . . The insistent prayer of a righteous person is powerfully effective.

Revelation 21:8 But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Lust

Proverbs 6:23-29, 32-34 For the commandment is a lamp . . . keep you from the immoral woman, from the flattery of the wayward wife’s tongue. Don’t lust after her beauty in your heart, neither let her captivate you with her eyelids. For a prostitute reduces you to a piece of bread. The adulteress hunts for your precious life. Can a man scoop fire into his lap, and his clothes not be burned? Or can one walk on hot coals, and his feet not be scorched? So is he who goes in to his neighbor’s wife. Whoever touches her will not be unpunished. . . . He who commits adultery with a woman is void of understanding. He who does it destroys his own soul. He will get wounds and dishonor. His reproach will not be wiped away. For jealousy arouses the fury of the husband. He won’t spare in the day of vengeance.

Matthew 5:28 but I tell you that everyone who gazes at a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Romans 6:13 Also, do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals . . . will inherit God’s Kingdom.

1 Corinthians 6:16 Or don’t you know that he who is joined to a prostitute is one body? For, “The two”, he says, “will become one flesh.”

1 Corinthians 6:18 Flee sexual immorality! “Every sin that a man does is outside the body,” but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.

1 Corinthians 10:8 Let us not commit sexual immorality, as some of them committed, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell.

Galatians 5:19, 21 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality . . . orgies, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom..

Ephesians 5:5 Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God.

2 Timothy 2:22 Flee from youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the bed be undefiled: but God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterers.

Revelation 21:8 But for the . . . sexually immoral . . . their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.

Greed

Matthew 6:24-33  . . . You can’t serve both God and Mammon [money].

Matthew 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.

Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, sexual sins, murders, thefts, covetings, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

Mark 10:17-25 As he was going out into the way, one ran to him, knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” . . . Jesus looking at him loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack. Go, sell whatever you have, and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me, taking up the cross.” But his face fell at that saying, and he went away sorrowful, for he was one who had great possessions. Jesus looked around, and said to his disciples, “How difficult it is for those who have riches to enter into God’s Kingdom! . . . It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into God’s Kingdom.”

Luke 6:24 But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation.

Luke 12:15  . . . Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness . . .

1 Timothy 6:8-44 But having food and clothing, we will be content with that. But those who are determined to be rich fall into a temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts, such as drown men in ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed, and have pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, man of God, flee these things, and follow after righteousness . . .

James 5:1 Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming on you.

(Emphasis mine)

Selfishness

Matthew 23:25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and unrighteousness.

Mark 8:34 He called the multitude to himself with his disciples, and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

Romans 6:6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be in bondage to sin.

Galatians 5:19-21 Now the deeds of the flesh are obvious . . . jealousies . . . and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

Ephesians 4:22, 24 that you put away, as concerning your former way of life, the old man, that grows corrupt after the lusts of deceit; . . . and put on the new man, who in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of truth.

Philippians 2:3 doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself

James 3:14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, don’t boast and don’t lie against the truth.

Covetousness

Deuteronomy 5:21 You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, his field, or his male servant, or his female servant, his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.

Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the hearts of men, proceed evil thoughts . . . an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, and foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.

Romans 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy . . . (NIV)

Romans 7:7-8  . . . However, I wouldn’t have known sin, except through the law. For I wouldn’t have known coveting, unless the law had said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, finding occasion through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of coveting. . . .

Slavery to Pleasure

Luke 8:14 That which fell among the thorns, these are those who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with cares, riches, and pleasures . . .

1 Timothy 5:6 But she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives.

2 Timothy 3:1-7 But know this, that in the last days, grievous times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God; holding a form of godliness, but having denied its power. Turn away from these, also. For some of these are people who creep into houses, and take captive gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts . . .

Titus 3:3 For we were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures . . .

Hebrews 11:24-26 By faith, Moses . . . choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time; accounting the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

James 4:3 You ask, and don’t receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it for your pleasures.

2 Peter 2:13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. (NIV)

Laziness

The following is an extract from Forgotten Christian Secrets of Prosperity. Wherever it occurs in the following Scriptures, the emphasis is mine.

Psalm 128:2 For you will eat the labor of your hands. You will be happy, and it will be well with you.

Did you catch it or did it sneak past you? “For you will eat the labor of your hands . . .” Even with divine blessing, you still have to work. Sadly, many of us are so out of touch with biblical thinking that even the thought of having to physically work for God’s blessing seems unspiritual! To confirm that this verse is not some biblical aberration, examine the following:

Proverbs 24:33-34 a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep; so your poverty will come as a robber, and your want as an armed man.

Proverbs 13:4 The soul of the sluggard [the lazy person] desires, and has nothing, but the desire of the diligent [the person who works hard and consistently] shall be fully satisfied.

Proverbs 12:24 The hands of the diligent ones shall rule, but laziness ends in slave labor.

Proverbs 20:4 A sluggard does not plow in season; so at harvest time he looks but finds nothing.The sluggard will not plow by reason of the winter; therefore he shall beg in harvest, and have nothing.

Proverbs 23:21 for the drunkard and the glutton shall become poor; and drowsiness clothes them in rags.

Consider this Scripture on divine provision:

Psalm 104:25-28 There is the sea, great and wide, in which are innumerable living things, both small and large animals. There the ships go, and leviathan, whom you formed to play there. These all wait for you, that you may give them their food in due season. You give to them; they gather. You open your hand; they are satisfied with good.

God provides but it still takes effort. The principle applies even to the miraculous provision of manna:

Exodus 16:14-18, 22, 26 When the dew that lay had gone, behold, on the surface of the wilderness was a small round thing, small as the frost on the ground. When the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they didn’t know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: “Gather of it everyone according to his eating of it everyone according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, you shall take it, every man for those who are in his tent.” The children of Israel did so, and gathered much, some little. And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much had nothing over, and he who gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. . . . On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much . .  Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day is the Sabbath. In it there shall be none..

Each Sabbath, no gathering of the manna was permitted because gathering was work.

And don’t for a moment imagine that New Testament faith negates this spiritual principle of divine provision requiring work on behalf of the recipients. Read this carefully:

2 Thessalonians 3:6-12 Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion, and not after the tradition which they received from us. For you know how you ought to imitate us. For we didn’t behave ourselves rebelliously among you, neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you; not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us. For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone will not work, don’t let him eat.” For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies. Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.

1 Corinthians 3:8  . . . each will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

Colossians 3:22-23 Servants, obey in all things those who are your masters according to the flesh, not just when they are looking, as men pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God. And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord, and not for men

As we will soon see, these Scriptures are but a tiny fraction of the New Testament emphasis on physical work. Faith is not a way of avoiding hard work. What makes God’s blessing different is not how hard we must work but that without God’s blessing our hard work ultimately ends up wasted:

Deuteronomy 28:15, 38-40 But it shall come to pass, if you will not listen to the Lord your God’s voice, to observe to do all his commandments . . . all these curses will come on you, and overtake you. . . . You will carry much seed out into the field, and will gather little in; for the locust will consume it. You will plant vineyards and dress them, but you will neither drink of the wine, nor harvest, because worms will eat them. You will have olive trees throughout all your borders, but you won’t anoint yourself with the oil; for your olives will drop off.

Psalm 109:2, 11  . . . wicked and the mouth of deceit . . . Let strangers plunder the fruit of his labor.

Jeremiah 3:24, 25 But the shameful thing has devoured the labor of our fathers from our youth . . . we have sinned against the Lord our God . . .

Jeremiah 51:58 The Lord of Armies says: The wide walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.

Habakkuk 2:13 Behold, isn’t it of the Lord of Armies that the peoples labor for the fire, and the nations weary themselves for vanity?

Haggai 1:6-7, 9, 11 “ . . . he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes in it.” This is what the Lord of Armies says: “Consider your ways.  . . . “You looked for much, and, behold, it came to little; and when you brought it home, I blew it away. Why?” says the Lord of Armies, “Because of my house that lies waste, while each of you is busy with his own house. . . . I called for a drought on the land, on the mountains . . . and on all the labor of the hands.”

A soft, lazy life is associated not with God’s blessing but with his displeasure:

Matthew 25:26 . . . You wicked and slothful servant. . . .

Titus 1:12 . . . Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, and idle gluttons.

Hard work is an important aspect of godliness:

Ephesians 4:28 Let him who stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, producing with his hands something that is good, that he may have something to give to him who has need.

Acts 20:34 You yourselves know that these hands served my necessities, and those who were with me.

1 Corinthians 4:12 We toil, working with our own hands. . . .

1 Thessalonians 2:9 For you remember, brothers, our labor and travail; for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached to you the Good News of God.

1 Thessalonians 4:11 and that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, even as we instructed you

Titus 3:14 Let our people also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful.

The Bible’s ideal housewife works so hard that you might need to rest up after merely reading of all she crams into her long day:

Proverbs 31:10-27 Who can find a worthy woman? For her price is far above rubies. . . .
She seeks wool and flax, and works eagerly with her hands.
She is like the merchant ships. She brings her bread from afar.
She rises also while it is yet night, gives food to her household . . .
She considers a field, and buys it. With the fruit of her hands, she plants a vineyard.
She arms her waist with strength, and makes her arms strong.
She perceives that her merchandise is profitable. Her lamp doesn’t go out by night.
She lays her hands to the distaff, and her hands hold the spindle.
She opens her arms to the poor; yes, she extends her hands to the needy. . . .
She makes for herself carpets of tapestry. . . .
She makes linen garments and sells them, and delivers sashes to the merchant.
Strength and dignity are her clothing. . . .
She looks well to the ways of her household, and doesn’t eat the bread of idleness.

Here’s a Scripture addressed to people in houses that not only had no washing machines, but no piped water; an era in which families were large and there was not only no cheap ready-made clothing but not even access to sewing or weaving machines:

1 Timothy 5:13-14 Besides, they also learn to be idle, going about from house to house. Not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not. I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household, and give no occasion to the adversary for insulting.

In contrast to hardworking wives, Paul writes:

1 Timothy 5:6 But she who gives herself to pleasure is dead while she lives.

Get rich quick dreams and schemes lead not to wealth but to poverty; not to contentment but to an endless craving. They are a curse that promises blessings but ends in regret:

Proverbs 20:21 An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning, won’t be blessed in the end.

Proverbs 28:8 He who increases his wealth by excessive interest gathers it for one who has pity on the poor.

Proverbs 28:19-20, 22 One who works his land will have an abundance of food; but one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty. A faithful man is rich with blessings; but one who is eager to be rich will not go unpunished. A stingy man hurries after riches, and doesn’t know that poverty waits for him.

Proverbs 13:11 Wealth gained dishonestly dwindles away, but he who gathers by hand makes it grow.