Stop Blocking The Blessings From Flowing

So many of us want all the benefits of Jesus. We want a sense of his presence. We want to be encouraged by his strength. We want to experience his power in us. We want to be able to speak to the mountains in our life with his authority and have them leap into the ocean. We want to be healthy and well, at peace, and content. These are all promises Jesus has given us and we want them so we can be awesome in our service to him. We want it but we keep getting in the way of receiving it. He has promised to prosper us, to shower us with these and even more blessings but we block them by our disobedience.

As I continue to explain the importance of obedience to my children I put it in terms they can understand. I ask them if they believe they should be rewarded for doing bad things? They answer no. I ask them if they believe they should be rewarded for disobeying my instructions. They answer no. See, even children understand this stuff. I explain to them that I want to bless them with all the good things I have to give them because I love them, but if I give them all these things when they disobey then I will be re-enforcing their bad behaviour and they will turn out to be bad people who do not know how to obey rules. They would be spoiled. What amazes me is that my children get it.

They now understand that when I correct them it isn't because I hate them but because I love them. They understand that if I don't correct them I will end up spoiling them, causing them to be rotten and useless to our society. I realize that there is a level of morality I am teaching them but I am not teaching them to follow the rules of man, but instead the commandments of Yahweh. You know, David taught the same thing to Solomon:

Now, my son, may the Lord be with you; and may you prosper, and build the house of the Lord your God, as He has said to you. Only may the Lord give you wisdom and understanding, and give you charge concerning Israel, that you may keep the law of the Lord your God. Then you will prosper, if you take care to fulfill the statutes and judgments with which the Lord charged Moses concerning Israel. Be strong and of good courage; do not fear nor be dismayed. (1 Chronicles 22:11-13)

In essence what he told Solomon is that he was praying wisdom for him to understand that if he obeyed Yahweh he would prosper. Simple enough for children to understand. "If you obey me good things will happen. If you disobey me bad things will happen." This is love. Correction comes from a root of love and is intended to increase not decrease a person.

Solomon started off well and indeed prospered beyond anyone's imagining. He became the greatest king on the earth and everyone submitted to his wisdom. However, Solomon did not continue in obedience. He married women that Yahweh had commanded not to marry. These women did exactly what Yahweh said they would do; they became a distraction to Solomon and he began to worship other gods. The blessings were removed and Yahweh brought in correction. Solomon's last days were spent in wars instead of the peace he had enjoyed. Because of his unrepentant disobedience Yahweh decided to divide the kingdom. Never again would one king rule over the complete kingdom as Yahweh divided it under Solomon's son's rule. It could have ended differently.

Many of us have yet to taste of the full blessing, prosperity, of our Lord because we do not give priority to obedience. We believe grace will carry us through. We do not have the maturity of a child to understand that it is our heart that matters to our Father. We may not be perfect but when our desire is to walk in obedience, holiness, his righteousness, when we give it our best effort because it is our desire to please him, then his grace covers us when we fall short. And if we fail to repentant when we fall short he will correct us so that we understand the importance to recognize when we have fallen short. This is a good thing. Even when we do fall short, the reason he covers us by grace is because our desire, our motivation is obedience. It is not the attitude of a spoiled child, "My dad loves me so he will forgive whatever I do". A child understands the difference, why can't we?

We want all the benefits of the relationship but just as Yahweh's response in the relationship of love is to bless us, our response should be the desire to obey. We need a David's heart, one that is fully for the Lord, all the time so that if we do fail our first concern is our relationship with Jesus. My friends open your arms and heart wide to receive all the abundant blessings he has planned for us, and be determined that the motivation of your heart in all matters is loving obedience in everything he has commanded.

Here's The Bath Water, Now Where Did That Baby Go To?

Have you ever gotten so involved with something that you have lost sight of everything that is important in your life? Of course you have; we all have. It is like the husband who mourned the death of his wife and built her a grand hall in memorial. However, he got so lost in the project that he ended up throwing out her body in the process. So now we have the Taj Mahal as a reminder of what happens when we lose sight of our purpose in the midst of the journey. When this happens to me I go back to three places in the Bible to regain my footing: the Psalms, Proverbs and the gospel of John.

Psalm 1 is a great grounding psalm. It reminds us of the greatest priority in our lives, that living is not enough, and living for God must be our center:

God blesses those people
    who refuse evil advice
    and won’t follow sinners
    or join in sneering at God.
2 Instead, the Law of the Lord
    makes them happy,
    and they think about it
    day and night. (Psalm 1:1-2, CEV)

It is far too easy to take short cuts in life, to set aside what is right to gain personally in our finances. But righteousness is important to God and effects our relationship when it is not our priority. But this righteousness does not come from the law but instead from a love for the Lord. It is like any other love. When we love someone we would never desire to do them wrong. God's love for us has given us a life possible through grace. We do not earn it by living a law. But our heart response is to want to please and honour our God. There is right and there is wrong in life and our love for Jesus will give us a desire to do what is right. This desire for righteousness sets us apart:

They are like trees
    growing beside a stream,
trees that produce
fruit in season
    and always have leaves.
Those people succeed
    in everything they do. (vv. 3-4)

For me, this is the secret of life. I can labour until my dying day and do marginally well for myself. I will be known as a hard worker but it doesn't mean I was fruitful. Many people work hard and see limited success but God has promised to bless the work of the hands of his children. I do not believe this means nominal success. I believe this means fruitfulness in a way that the world will be able to see the hand of God.

This does not mean oodles of money. Success is more than just money so why should be allow this to be our measuring rod? Fruitfulness means abundance in relationships, health, attitude, outlook, love, joy, wisdom and everything else in life. It is not a "getting by" or a "marginal" attitude but a great generosity in everything, including finances. It has been given to us, as God's children to produce abundantly.

That's why I love going back to these verses to get re-established. I need to know that mediocre is not what I have been called to. I need to be reminded that God's plan is so much greater than my own. I need to be reminded that God has greater purposes in my success that just for my sake and yet blessings for me is included in his plan. If I do not feel the creative juices flowing, if I have become unaware of the blessings, if I am feeling drained, then my roots are not in the stream of the water of life. These verses are a warning sign to me. It is like God is holding up a picture to show me what it is suppose to look like.

So, have I lost it? Have I lost the purpose in the busyness of the project? Has my vision so narrowed that I have thrown out the baby while holding on to the bath water? The honest answer for me is yes. But such honesty is only valuable if I am going to do something about it and this blog entry is a beginning step to get back to my first love. A baby step but it is a step. It all comes down to love, a passionate love, a love response in light of what Jesus has done and the Father continues to do every day. I am so thankful for his grace, which never gives up on people like me. I am so thankful for the mercies that are new every morning.

A Life Worth Living

I so wish I could accurately express to people how we are getting Christianity wrong. The basic problem is that we continue to live as if it is something that goes outward in whereas the reality of it is that it goes inward out.

Jesus explained to us that it is not what goes into people that make them unclean but what comes out. Think about it.

Most people want a set of rules or instructions to follow. I have even heard preachers describe the Bible as a "How To" book on life. Others refer to it as an instruction book. But it isn't. The purpose of the Bible is to reveal what God has done for us and is doing in us. It's an explanation.

So many people try to "live by the Word" but forget that we are miserable failures at it. So we come up with excuses, "I'm only human", "I'm not perfect, only forgiven" and so on. But in truth the greatest failure is not understanding that these things that God is doing is done by the Spirit in us.

Again let me say, God's place is to do and ours is to submit to the Doer.

It is God who changes us, not us changing ourselves.

However, in Colossians 3 we do find a few things we can do to better facilitate God's work in us:

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. (Colossians 3:15)

There is number one and two right there. Let, allow, permit, make way for, submit to, invite in the peace of Jesus so it may rule in your hearts. When Jesus told us he was giving us peace he emphasized it was his peace and he did not give as the world gives. It is ours, never to be taken away. But he is the one who gives it. We receive it from him as a gift, not something we earn because we have removed all the stresses from our life and we know how to do yoga or have mastered meditation. His peace exists in us in the worst of times because of Jesus and we "let" it rule our heart. That's our part, letting it.

The second thing is being thankful. He does so much for us that he creates this natural condition of thanksgiving but we have to choose to be thankful. A complaining spirit is not thankful. Neither is a heart filled with rage, anger, hurt, pride and all the other junk we pollute ourselves with. A thankful heart should be natural in the light of God's grace but it is still our choice. We have to "let" it.

There are a few other things that we can do as well. These are all things that allow God to have the freedom to work in us and in the Church:

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (v.16)

God can't force us to study his Word, that is our choice. But it is more than study, it is allowing the Spirit to put that Word into effect in our living: "dwell in you richly". It is seeing the Word come alive in all its depth when it says to love one another, to respect the elders, to love your enemies. God will write it upon our heart and the Spirit will enrich our lives with it as the Word takes life through our living. It is amazing stuff that works from the inside out but we have to let it, allow it, permit it, make way for it, submit to it, invite it in.

Part of the riches of the "Word alive in us" is the vibrancy it brings to the Body of Christ, the Church, our family. It is not a community, it is family, and it is vibrant when each member allows the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly. It turns us into teachers and ones who are able to admonish with all wisdom and not with anger and hatred. It overwhelms us with love for each other and the desire to see the best in people. It fills us with praise so that we are known as a people of singing and dancing as the praises of our God flow out of us. And, it brings us back to this point again, it provokes gratitude in our hearts to God.

Interesting how it always seems to bring us to thanksgiving, gratitude, thankfulness, appreciation. When we are busy being thankful we don't have time to complain or criticize.

So what is the end game? What results from these few things that we are able to do since it is up to God to transform us? The bottom line of our life is this:

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (v. 17)

There you go, a life worth living!

These few things that we can do amount to nothing more than facilitating the inward transformation that God is working in us, but it lets, allows, permits, makes way for, submits and invites in our ability to live our life in the name of Jesus. And don't forget the giving thanks bit. It provokes us to be a people of constant thanksgiving.

I don't know what other kind of life we are living but this is the only life that is actually worth living. This is life in abundance. This is freedom. This is joy. This is love. This is Christianity as it is meant to be.