The Danger of Sin Against Your Assignment
by Dr. John Tetsola

God wants us to have fruitfulness and longevity in our assignments. But the enemy wants to destroy our assignment. One of the important ways Satan uses to destroy our assignment is through personal sins and desires. From scripture to scripture, we can see how the enemy has immobilized, paralyzed, and destroyed the anointing and ministry of great men and women of God, because they failed to recognize the enemy of their assignment.

How Sin Affects Our Call and Our Dreams

And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Genesis 4: 6-7

Cain had a choice to make, just as we have a choice to make. Will we obey God by doing well and reaching our destination in Him, or will we disobey God and forfeit the expected end He has promised to those who obey Him? The Scripture says Cain went out from the presence of the Lord (Gen. 4:16). This speaks of spiritual death—that state of separation and broken fellowship that Christ Jesus died and rose again to restore. Sin was allowed into the world to give mankind a choice—whether to walk with God and do well, or to reject God’s way and allow sin to blockade the door of our destiny in Him.

What did God mean by doing “well?” To do well is to obey God’s commandments and to do what is right in His eyes. Holiness is God’s nature and standard. It is strict adherence to God’s standard as defined in His Word. The word “well” in Genesis 4:7 literally means to “sound beautiful.” Walking in harmonious and accordant obedience to God’s law is sweetness to His ears and pleasant in His eyes. Acceptance, elevation in rank, cheerfulness, and elation result when we obey God. To do well is to create a beautiful sound in God’s ears.

And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.

Numbers 20: 12

Moses, the meekest man on earth, and his brother Aaron received the penalty for their unbelief—the very sin that caused the children of Israel to wander and eventually die in the wilderness. God is just. He had to mete out the same judgment for the same sin of unbelief to Moses and Aaron as He meted out to the children of Israel. Everyone who failed to believe God, and who walked in rebellion and disobedience to His commands, died in the wilderness.

To die in the wilderness is to fail to reach our goals in God. It is failing to accomplish our assignment in God. God’s plan wasn’t for Moses to die before crossing over into the Land of Promise. God’s original plan for Moses was that he’d walk in the abundance and fruitfulness in God’s land of milk and honey. Moses chose not to obey God through his unbelief. God wanted him to simply speak to the rock. Moses missed the mark, transgressed God’s law, and walked in unbelief by not sanctifying God in the eyes of the children of Israel. By speaking only, the children of Israel would have risen to another level of God’s revelation of Himself as their Sustainer and Provider. Up to that point, they had depended completely on Moses for everything. God wanted to draw their focus away from Moses to Himself. By Moses’ speaking to the rock without doing anything spectacular, the children of Israel would have known more fully that God was indeed the One giving them what they needed most—The Water of Life! God wanted to reveal Himself as the Fountain of Life and would have been sanctified or set apart in their eyes.

Moses’ Disobedience Cost Him His Assignment

I pray thee, let me go over, and see the good land that is beyond Jordan, that goodly mountain, and Lebanon.

But the LORD was wroth with me for your sakes, and would not hear me: and the LORD said unto me, Let it suffice thee; speak no more unto me of this matter.

Deuteronomy 3: 25-26

God’s process to bring the children of Israel into a greater revelation of Himself as their Fountain had left Moses shut out of the promised land. How? God had given Moses specific instructions, which Moses had failed to obey. He had disbelieved God’s order to speak to the rock. The penalty for Moses’ sin of unbelief was receiving a vision of the promised land only, but never physically walking in it. Moses even prayerfully asked God to change His mind and allow him to go over Jordan, and God said no. God had solemnly declared that all who rebelled against Him would fall in the wilderness, and Moses was no exception, and he of all people should have known the danger of disobedience, because it was he who was instructed by God to strip Aaron of his priestly vestments in Mount Hor, and Aaron died there (Num. 20:28). Some believers will see and know their assignment of God from a distance, but never walk in it because of their unbelief. Whether through direct disobedience to God’s command or by failure to believe God and carry out His command fully, each of us will receive the penalty for our actions which could cost us our assignments.

by Dr. John A. Tetsola