All tagged blessing
It was in the wee hours of this very day in 2015 that I sat in my prayer chair and prayed for the Lord to take me into His hands as I faced cancer surgery, and then I prayed a blessing upon Him, and each person who had prayed, or was praying for me, to also be blessed. Giving a blessing to others, and blessing God, is one of the most wonderful and spiritual things we can do; so, after praying in this way I wrote an open letter that I will share with you now...
This morning we are delving into the phenomenon of Christians who do not pray, and the ramifications of that lack of communication with God on their faith. We also will touch again on the fact that pastors should not only pray but request prayer of their congregations. Pastor E.M. Bounds wrote strongly of the disappointing fact that there are Christians who do not pray, or who pray very little. Here is an example of his thinking on this subject: "The more holy a person is, the more he values prayer; clearer he sees that God gives Himself to praying people." – E. M. Bounds.
Am I blessed as Jesus said I would be when He taught the Beatitudes? Do I see them as simple precepts for life, or does their spiritual undercurrent shake me? These very easily followed rules for living can improve the life of an unbeliever, or elevate a person of faith to a dramatically higher spiritual plane.
We suffer in our lives, but no suffering is experienced without God using it for His good purposes. The question becomes this... do we see Him working in our most dire circumstances? If we are attuned to the will of God in our lives we should acknowledge His plan for us, even in our misery... unless, of course, we are blinded to Him by our disbelief.
It is good to routinely ask ourselves challenging questions. My question today is "Am I seeking those things which are truly important in life?" I am contemplating what I actually hold as highest in my life by asking myself if those things are really as valuable as I believe them to be. Am I placing value on fleeting things at the expense of the eternal treasures of faith?
Although we are Christians, can we remember the last time we made peace in a bad situation? Perhaps we never have, but if by chance we can remember such a time, then we are truly blessed. If we are peacemakers then God promises us a blessing, but what will that blessing be, and in the moment when God reveals it to us will it be everything we imagined? In that blessed instant of unimaginable grace will the gift of holiness we receive allow us to see the brilliant glory of the great I Am, and hear Him call us sons?
Are we stingy with what God has given us? Do we hold back gifts from those in need, and forget that all we possess is from God? We are to be good stewards of what we have been given, but that doesn’t mean that we are to selfishly horde it, or bury it in the ground as in the parable of the talents. We are to glorify God by giving thanks to Him for His provision, but we should be multiplying our thanks by giving as He directs us, to others so that they too will glorify Him by their thanks.
Are we blessed in the relationship we have with Jesus Christ? When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus whether He was the Messiah that they had been waiting for, Jesus told them to recount for John all the miracles He had performed, and that He preached the good news, but then He said something quite different… He told them to tell John that those who were not offended by who He was would be blessed.
Do we pray blessings upon God during our prayers, and bless Him by our actions as we live out our lives? Perhaps this perplexes us because we don’t know how it could be possible for us to give anything, much less a blessing, to Almighty God the creator and possessor of all things? So what are we to do, or what do we have that we should find valuable enough to consider a blessing for God?
We go through hard times in our lives, and then become all too familiar with death, but for Christians there are two things that miraculously occur in death, the first is that we, or our loved ones who have passed away, are assured of rising up again in Christ, and the second is that our memories of life with them, or our friend’s and family’s remembrances of their life with us, become rich and wonderful as most of the hardships we encountered together in life are either cast off as insignificant, or become treasured moments for us. This is unfathomable or misunderstood in the world, but not to the believer. While the unbeliever finds no peace in death, and little comfort in their memories, we are comforted by God, and the moments of triumphant joy in our faith in Christ lifts us up.
As Christians we believe in God, and have faith in Jesus Christ His Son. We also work at behaving as Jesus did in our own lives, we love our neighbors, feed the hungry, visit the sick, and many other things that we have learned through the study of the gospels, but there might be one lesson that is particularly hard for us… sharing what we have. As hard as this might be for some of us to do it is something that is pleasing to God. When the occasion presents itself to do good, do we also share what we have been given.
How many blessings are we given by our Heavenly Father that aren’t immediately obvious to us? How is it that we receive them without their showing themselves beforehand? So often we are thirsty in some way, and the Lord tells us to begin digging a well, and not only to dig with our hands, or by laboring over a hoe, or a shovel, but to dig with the instruments, and implements, of our faith. In such moments God goes even further by telling us to sing as we labor; not to Him, but to that thing He has told us to do, that will bring forth what will come from Him. We are told to sing to the wells we have been told to dig, and the gifts that God is preparing to give us in our lives?
When we give, whether it be tithes, gifts, or to sustain another, the act of giving in love increases the worth of what we have given. On the other hand, when we receive a gift from someone, we shouldn’t revel in what it has done in our lives, but for the fruit it produces in the life of the giver. In this way, we might help someone in need, or benefit the church with our offering, but the real value comes in how it increases our own faith, and the spiritual warmth we realize from this simple act, because we are giving God’s bounty… not ours.
This is the final day of the year, and what better way to close it out than with a doxology, a concluding prayer extolling the virtues and power of God, and lifting up the glory He has placed in Jesus Christ who abides in us, and the Church of which we are members by our faith. Praise Him now!
When we deal in the world we expect to receive a product or service for a fair and equitable price. When we give a dollar for loaf of bread we expect that loaf to be of a certain size, and exactly what we have bargained for, but when we obey God, and do the things He has asked of us we don’t receive a fair price; no, He gives to us in abundance, and far more than we can imagine. Are we ready to answer “Here am I”, and receive the overflowing blessing of the Lord in return?