The difference you make

Do you know that for the sake of you, Christian, God blesses unbelievers? All throughout history, righteous people have made it good for unrighteous people, just by being there.

Noah’s whole family was saved in a boat on account of Noah (Genesis 7:1).

Lot’s family was saved from the destruction of Sodom on account of righteous Abraham’s prayer (Genesis 18:20-33).

That foxy Uncle Laban’s animal husbandry was blessed on account of Jacob (Genesis 30:27-30).

Potiphar noticed that ever since the Hebrew kid Joseph was in his stable of slaves, he was unusually prosperous (Genesis 39:2-6).

The stiff-necked nation of Israel was about to annihilated, but God stayed His hand because of Moses (Exodus 32:10-14).

The harlot Rahab’s faith in helping the Hebrews conquer Jericho saved not only her own skin but her family as well (Joshua 2:12-14).

The unrighteous king of Israel and the righteous king of Judah, Jehoshaphat, sought the prophet Elisha’s blessing on a war campaign. Elisha turned to the king of Israel and said:

“As the LORD of hosts lives, before whom I stand, were it not that I have regard for Jehoshaphat the king of Judah, I would neither look at you nor see you” (2 Kings 3:14).

Then the kingdom of Judah became corrupt too:

“Yet the LORD was not willing to destroy Judah, for the sake of David his servant …” (2 Kings 8:19).

Abraham’s faith in offering God his only son cast such a long shadow of blessing in history that it is repeatedly given as the reason God spares Israel from deserved destruction (2 Kings 13:22-23).

Here’s a mysterious one: Paul instructs a Christian woman to stay with her unbelieving spouse, if he is willing. The reason:

“For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean. But as it is, they are holy” (1 Corinthians 7:14).

Jesus tells a parable of wheat and tares (Matthew 13:24-30). The wheat are the righteous and the tares, or weeds, are the unrighteous. In the story, a servant of the farm owner asks if he should yank out all the tares. It seems to make sense. But the master says No, let them grow alongside the wheat for now, and we will weed them out in the end.

The presence of the righteous is a blessing to all.