Why Seek Blessings?

Why do we seek blessings from the Lord? Why do we ask him for a good day, or the strength to make it through? Why do we seek his grace and run to him when we are in trouble? Some would say the answer is obvious: Because we need his help. Yes, but I am asking, what is the underlying motivation? Is it so that we will have a comfortable life or so we don't have to face the harshness of some situations? Is it for our benefit?

Is that what life is about for us, to be comfortable? Is our life to be spent on ourselves, our needs, our desires, our comforts? Are our prayers about us? Are the blessings about us? It is amazing how quickly we can change the selfless instructions of Jesus to be about focusing on us. If I had to summarize the gospel in a few words, I read that we die to ourselves when we accept Jesus, that we live through him, and our purpose is now the Father's will, and his will is that everyone would be saved. Can we say that we live our life with the purpose of seeing the lost saved, or are we living for ourselves and our family?

The psalmist of Psalm 67 sought the blessings of the Lord but let's consider his motivation:

Let God grant us grace and bless us;
    let God make his face shine on us,
so that your way becomes known on earth,
    so that your salvation becomes known among all the nations. (Psalm 67:1-2)

"Lord bless us so that ..." It is a really important "so that". It explains the motivation and I am amazed that this writer understood our purpose better than us.

So that ... your way becomes known on earth. Oh Lord, let your blessings flow through us so that the world would know you, see you, marvel at you. Let us not dam up the blessings by being selfish but may we be a conduit for everyone around us.

So that ... your salvation becomes known among all nations. Oh Lord, let your blessings flow through us so others would be convinced of your love, mercy, compassion and grace. May your blessings in me be a sign post to your salvation.

Mercy, grace, compassion, forgiveness has been given freely to us and we in turn are to freely give it out. It did not cost us. I like how Jesus said it:

You received without having to pay. Therefore, give without demanding payment. (Matthew 10:8)

Let us seek the Lord's blessings understanding their purpose and may he shine brightly in all that we do and in all the blessings we receive.

Have We Been Left To Our Own Devices?

There are times I get the impression most Christians feel they have been handed an assignment and have been sent out from the presence of Yahweh to complete it. We have this "go it alone" mentality where we think we have to do whatever we think is best to survive because no one else is going to help us. We struggle over decisions, direction, actions to take, words to speak, and we stress ourselves out. But we are never alone, and we have not been sent out on our own. In fact, the promise of Jesus is just the opposite.

Jesus promised that he would be with us to the end of the age. Via the Holy Spirit, Jesus is constantly present, giving us strength, hope, peace, instruction and direction. From him we receive the power and ability to do everything he has given us to do. If we ask for counsel he gives it. That is the part we miss out on all the time. Instead, we come up with our own plans and ask him to bless them. That is our approach for most of our life, to do what we want and expect Jesus' blessing on it. It gets us into trouble.

A glaring example of this is found in Joshua 9 when a local city decided to deceive Israel into making a treaty with them. The people were smart enough to see what was happening and they did not want to be removed from their land so they made it appear that their envoys had come from a great distance to make the treaty. It was a brilliantly conceived desperate plan and it worked because of one reason:

Then the men of Israel took some of their provisions; but they did not ask counsel of the Lord. (Joshua 9:14)

Israel went by what they could see instead of asking the One who sees everything. If you have never read this incident then I encourage you to do so because it is an example of how we can be tricked into disobeying Yahweh, even when it is our full desire to walk in obedience. We have not been left on our own for a reason: We can't make it on our own. We don't know everything. We can't see everything. We are vulnerable to deception. We need the wisdom, power, and direction of Jesus. Have you never considered what Jesus told his disciples and us:

Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

This was delivered during a warning of the persecution we would face because the world hates the righteousness of Jesus Christ Yet, we are messing up because we fail to understand we live in a world that is naturally hostile toward us. This world is under the influence of a false prince and we are here to be the salt and light, but it is a terrible environment in which we are serving. So much tries to distract us from our mission and relationship with Jesus. There is such an incredible influence that tries to cut us off from our only source of everything we need. We must remain aware of this so we will also remember that we aren't in this by ourselves.

Independence from Jesus is the opposite to our goal. We need to let loose whatever we depend on in this world so our dependence on Jesus can grow. He is our source for all things good and he will equip us and instruct us every day of our lives. But we need to remember to ask. Don't forget today to ask.

Blessed To Be A Blessing

It seems that no matter how many times Scripture deals with it we are insistent on getting it backwards. Israel got it wrong and so many others have up to our present day. We insist on looking for blessings for ourselves whereas Yahweh's intention is to bless others through us. Jesus taught from that attitude, Paul stressed it and we find it throughout Scripture. I am going to use one simple verse from the early days to emphasize my point.

We all know Abraham was a man blessed by Yahweh. He was called out from his country and told to go to a new land. He was told that if he obeyed Yahweh he would be made into a great nation. We see how the Lord blessed him, multiplied his possessions, and made him a man of great influence in a foreign land. But have you examined exactly what Yahweh promised?

"I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing." (Genesis 12:2)

From the very beginning Israel was intended to be a blessing to the world. The Lord never just pours his blessing in to be stored up and lived on. Consider the manna he sent in the desert. It wasn't sent once a week but every day. It was a blessing renewed every day. His blessings are renewed in us every day so that they are like a flowing stream, not to be dammed up but to be freely shared.

When Jesus gave his authority to his disciples and sent them out to minister, he told them:

"Freely you have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8)

We have received tremendous blessings of love, grace, forgiveness, compassion, and these we are to give to others freely. But we have also been blessed with power. Jesus told his disciples to use that power freely to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead and cast out demons. It wasn't about them but those the Lord was sending them to, to bless.Whatever gifts of the Spirit we have been given we are to be generous in the sharing and bless those to whom the Lord has sent us.

I don't think many of us have problems with this until it comes to our wallet. So often we can gauge our spiritual maturity by our attitude with our finances. With the rich young man that came to Jesus, it was his stumbling block and Jesus knew it. It is why he told him to get rid of it and then come follow him. Money is not ours to possess but a blessing we are stewards over. It doesn't belong to us, and like the Macedonians, we should hear when the Lord says to share the blessing, even when we have little of it:

For I bear witness that according to their ability, yes, and beyond their ability, they were freely willing, imploring us with much urgency that we would receive the gift and the fellowship of the ministering to the saints. And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God. (2 Corinthians 8:3-5)

But not us, because we have it backwards. We think that it is all about us. He don't see that we have been saved for others. We don't see that we have been blessed for others. We don't see that our life is about others. We honestly think it is about us and other people are missing out on an experience of Jesus because of it. Let's pray that the Lord will be gracious and show us more clearly his desire for our days and that we will deny ourselves for Jesus and others.

Growing Up Isn't The Easiest Thing To Do

Anyone can become a Christian with a simple prayer but not every Christian steps into their destiny to become everything Jesus has called us into. There are two large words that most Christians do not fully understand. The first is justification which in simple terms means what Jesus has done for us - our salvation. We had nothing to do with it because he did it all for us. Then there is sanctification - which is our walk, growth, progress to maturity, to become everything that we were meant to be. This takes effort and cooperation on our part as the Spirit works on us. But so many of us ignore sanctification and just rest on justification.

Salvation was the easy part for us because Jesus did all the heavy lifting but spiritual maturity takes effort and is the reason most Christians avoid it. Maturity is a huge subject but I want us to consider only one small but important aspect of it today. I want us to consider the heart.

Many of us know the parable of the sower which I think should have been known as the parable of the soil. You know that Jesus spoke about four conditions of the soil. The first was hard packed, a pathway, where the seed did not enter and the birds carried it away. The second was filled with rocks, preventing the seeds from growing deep roots, so when the sun beat down on the tiny plants they withered. The third was full of weeds so, when the plants tried to grow, their life was choked out. The last was good soil. Often we concentrate on the first three types of soil but I want us to consider the fourth.

First of all, this is not about salvation, it is about spiritual growth. The good soil has already been prepared to receive the seed. When we approach the Word of God we should always spend a few moments examining our heart condition. If we read and study the Bible at all we often do it without thought as to whether we are prepared to receive it. We read but our mind is off, wandering about on other matters. Either the seed doesn't go in at all, or it only goes so deep because we haven't cleared away our doubts. What does go in gets choked out because of all the things we are worried about or that our heart is occupied with. Sometimes we simply rush it, so we can get onto the next thing, like checking our FaceBook or Tumblr. These things all need to be cleared so it is just us, the Spirit and the Word.

The growth of the plant is all about Christian maturity which is a process. In the parable, the seeds grow into plants, first growing their stems, then leafs appear, and eventually the fruit which must then mature and ripen. From these few seeds a harvest is produced. This is done naturally, with no effort, as long as there is good sunlight and rain because the soil is already good. It is not so in the reality of spiritual growth, which requires patient endurance:

But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience. (Luke 8:15)

Here we simply see the word "patience" but the original language conveys a greater sense then the passive sense of patience we think of today. It is the same word that we find in Matthew 10:22 :

And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved.

That sense of enduring until the end, going the distance, completing the task, setting the hand to the plow and not looking back. It is the endurance that presses on no matter the obstacles found in the way. It is a vigorous patience that supports the fruit of Christian character that must be produced in the maturity of relationship with Jesus.

The first step is to realize that there is more to our relationship with Jesus than just our salvation. Our salvation is the beginning point, but maturity is our destination. Jesus has taken care of our salvation but now we need to cooperate in the condition of our heart so that the Word can produce a great harvest in us. 

Hardness of heart has to go. We limit the Spirit to what we see instead of understanding we have been called out of the ordinary to follow the water walker, the giver of sight, the healer of brokenness, the restorer of life. We follow the miracle man and are in turn the people of miracles.

Doubt needs to be dug up and thrown aside. We have to stop doubting everything the Spirit plants in us. Often those doubts are of the goodness of the Lord toward us. Why are we so thick about this? Paul said, if Father loved us enough to send Jesus to die for us, why would he hold any lesser good thing from us? Remove the boulders of doubt so the roots grow down deep. 

Kill those weeds of fear, anxiety and busyness. Stop rushing in and out of the Word. Honour the fact that this is the Word of God, not some newspaper or magazine. This is what the Spirit uses to teach and grow us into maturity. Respect it and start putting greater trust in what it has to say than what the world is saying.

When we have prepared the soil the Spirit will do the planting but don't forget that the work has only begun. If you want more of Jesus, a greater relationship, more power, a closer walk, better understanding, maturity, then you are going to have to work with the Spirit on the matter. Like any great project you will always hit obstacles so you will have to be determined that the end goal, the destination, the product is worth the price. The many faithful men and women who have gone before us testify that it is worth it, as they gave their everything in the effort to mature in the Lord. It's time for us to grow up in Jesus.

Loving Without Compromise In A Divided Home

Things are changing very quickly in the Church's relationship with the world and we are beginning to see large divisions in the Church herself. There is a great spirit of confusion because the enemy is taking advantage of the fact that people do not know their Bible. Even though we have more resources available to us than ever before, biblical illiteracy is incredibly high. When we don't know what Jesus taught it becomes easy for the enemy to change our heart with a changing of the wind as we are seeing in our society of late.

At the end of the Old Testament we find the book of Malachi and at the end of this book we have a warning to not let go of the Word of God. We also find here the promise of what the returning prophet Elijah would do:

And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse. (Malachi 4:6)

So many parents hold on to these words as a promise not understanding their significance. This is not speaking of family strife but of generations that had turned away from the patriarchs of Israel, who had left the teaching of the ancients and had rebelled against Yahweh. In other words it was speaking of the nation of Israel. So this is the condition of Israel when John the Baptist began preaching and he was effective. The people turned and repented, receiving a baptism of repentance. Jesus had another warning for parents though:

Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ (Matthew 10:34-36)

Jesus spoke of what is only natural because the flesh cannot be friends with the Spirit nor the Spirit with the flesh because they are contrary. When a son or daughter refuses Christ and the parents stay steadfast then there is division. When the son or daughter belong to Jesus and the parents do not, there will be division. We are going to see much more of it in the days to come as the world sinks deeper into its depravity and the saints continue to stand on the Word. The hatred will grow and we will see greater division. Jesus knew his the cross would not bring peace to the world but would bring peace between those who accepted it and Father. But he warned us:

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. (v. 37-38)

Many of us will do anything to have peace in the family. We will be willing to compromise the Word, bend some things that Jesus taught, all for the sake of peace in the house. Peace at all cost, but Jesus warned against it. No matter the cost we must pay, we have to keep to the understanding that Jesus is of highest importance and priority. Even if we lose our entire family as a result, we must stand with Jesus; we must love him more than any other.

Yes parents, our hearts will be crushed as the sin of unbelief divides us from our flesh and blood. Yes children, your hearts will yearn for the council of your dear parents, but our love for Jesus must be superior to all of this. It is hard but that is exactly what the enemy is counting on, that our earthly affections will keep us from Jesus. We cannot compromise on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. We cannot compromise on the holiness of our LORD God. We cannot live but the Word of God.

He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (v. 39) 

We never lose hope nor give up on those whom we are separated from because of unbelief; we love them too much to give up. But neither do we move from the Rock, upon whom we stand, to be with them in their depravity. Every person will have to make their decision and will be held accountable for that decision. We can pray for them and try to persuade them but they have to make and live with their own decision. Do your best to get them in now because it is almost too late but whatever you do, don't go wandering yourself because the curtain is being drawn on this age. Stand fast my friend and pray.

Failing To Fully Possess What Has Been Promised

Too many of us are not fully possessing what Jesus intended for us to possess. We have been offered the fullness of Christ and instead we satisfy ourselves with a few crumbs. We are repeating exactly what the Israelites did when they were offered the Promised Land. They never fully possessed it. Some of the tribes took what was given to them but others never did. Even the tribes that did take their possession did not flush out and destroy the other nations like they were instructed to do. And it came to pass exactly what Yahweh warned them would happen, that if they left any of those he sent them to destroy, they would be influenced to turn to other gods.

It's difficult for us to image what Israel could have been and how Yahweh would have been glorified, if only Israel had obeyed:

Now the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh, and set up the tabernacle of meeting there. And the land was subdued before them. But there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance.

Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you?" (Joshua 18:1-3)

How long will we neglect to possess all that Jesus has promised us? When he saved us he made us a new creation; no longer bound to this place; no longer bound to sin; no longer bound to the systems of man; no longer bound to the patterns of this world, we were set free to be fully possessed by the Holy Spirit, to be filled by the power of Jesus Christ, the resurrection power, free to be fully obedient to our Father's will. But we have failed.

We have failed to allow our love for the things of this world to die. We have allowed things to keep residence. We have allowed strongholds to remain and we still sacrifice at the high places. These things continue to pollute us, to influence our heart and mind. They drain goodness from us and cause us to have a divided loyalty. We want friendship with the world and friendship with Jesus, but it doesn't work that way.

To be fully possessed means to have one Master, one Lord, one King. To be fully possessed is to be fully committed to walking in Jesus' footsteps, to doing the Father's will, to obeying the Holy Spirit. It is a commitment to live by the Word of Yahweh and not by opinion. It is a full denial of yourself and a complete acceptance of Yahweh's wisdom.

We are serving in a half measure and expecting full benefits. But there is not half anything in the Kingdom; no half measure, half effort, half hearted, half minded. It is all or nothing:

He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. (Matthew 10:37-38)

I am not exactly sure when or why we lost it but we did. We have allowed the world to possess more of us than we have in the last 100 years. Holiness is almost forgotten as we join in with a society that only lives to be entertained. We are failing to live the powerful godly lives that Jesus saved us to live for his glory, and I am convinced that the only way we can change it is if we encourage each other to turn and seek the face of Yahweh, the presence of our LORD. We need to make the decision to vanquish the strongholds in our lives and place Jesus solidly on the throne, with no hesitation and with all our heart. We need to seek purity in our lives once more that we would be available to be used by our King, to bring salvation to the land and glory to his name.

Say no to being entertained by the sins of this world and yes to serving Jesus with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength. Jesus must be our everything.