Blessed To Be A Blessing

I am quite sure you have heard the saying "blessed to be a blessing"

This is truly what God does in each of our lives.

Everything he does is always bigger and better than what we ask or think.

We should be more thankful to God for how he has blessed us time and time again.

If we were to sit back and think of his multitude of blessings in our lives, I am quite

confident that we will notice a pattern with God,

as he has blessed us there have been others who have benefit from that blessing.

Ephesians 3:20"Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think..."

Isn't this awesome? when you look to God as the source of your provision, you can count on him to answer in a big way.

No, it may not be in the way you expect, but it will be better than you expect.

Think about the difficulties he's brought you through, and think about those with whom you have shared the story of those difficulties and  how God saw you through.

He blessed you so that you could share that testimony of his goodness, so the hearer of your testimony would be blessed.

If God has blessed you in your business, ministry, finances or any other area he does so out of love and wants you do the same and share the blessing.

From now on when God blesses you in any area, look and see who is blessed by that blessing that God has bestowed on you, and look and see how another's blessing has blessed your life.

His blessings are wonderful gifts that keep on giving.



Danger Of Festering Anger

Yes we see and experience a lot of injustice in the world, and yes we get angry about the injustice.

Yet it is written in Ephesians 4:26 "be angry, and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath."

We are instructed to not allow anger to sit up and fester, becoming something nasty and ugly, which is what happens when anger is left alone to feed on angry words and thoughts. It gives way to angry, hateful actions.

This is just the type of opportunity the enemy, Satan, looks for so that he may use his now angry victim to reap havoc, and cause an snowball effect of devastation.

He uses anger left to fester, causing people to commit all types of horrific crimes, and sinful deeds,  leaving many victims.

The person with the unresolved anger, the recipient of their anger, and the loved ones who are left trying to pickup  the shattered pieces of  lives damaged by this

festering anger.

We have a choice in the matter of anger.

We can either control it or allow anger to control us.

We can also carry all that concerns, or bothers us to the Lord, including our  issues of anger.

Psalm55:22 "cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you, He shall never permit the righteous to be moved."

God will repay the injustice done toward  you.

Deuteronomy 32:35 " Vengeance is mine and recompense, their foot shall slip in due time, for the day of their calamity is at hand, and the things to come hasten upon them."

How Did We Get Here?

We look around and see so much hate.

Where is the love and care for our fellow man?

Where is the brotherly and sisterly love God commands of us?

We see hate being addressed with more hate, which produces even greater hate.

Reaping and sowing applies to every area of our lives.

If we sow hate, it is hate that we shall reap and  like wise if we sow love than love we shall reap.

Just as if we were to sow apples, we would reap apples and so forth.

Is there anyone committed to sowing love?

Instead we find ourselves here, 2Timothy 3;2-4"For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."
If this does not sum up where we are today than I don't know what does.
We have a government more interested in power, money, and status than they are the lives of the people they claim to represent.
We live in a society where God is continuously pushed out of our lives, and replaced with man's wicked, selfish, deceptive ideas and plans.
The more distance we put between the creator of the universe and ourselves, we can only expect it to get worse.
The more we get away from his plans of order, the more we will experience disorder.
It is time for the body of Christ to wakeup from being religious,
and start being the righteousness of God.
It's time for us to stop being cowards of political correctness,
and start being the bold and courageous lions we were created anew to be.
Then we would find ourselves in a different place than where we are now,
wondering how did we get here?
It's time to move from this place of unrighteousness.



Looking For An Answer

There are times you come to a place where a decision must be made.

You assess the situation and pray for God's direction.

Sometimes in that prayer you ask God to answer in a way that seems reasonable to you.

God in his infinite wisdom, grace and love often has his own way in which to answer.

You wait expectantly for the answer and when the answer presents it's self in a way other than what you expected,

 you feel that either God has not answered your prayer, so now you make our own decision, or you really had your mind made up to do what you wanted all along, but somehow thought if would be best to get God to agree with you.

Whichever the thought process, you have gone our own way.

You may not have realized his silence was the answer to wait, the time was not yet right, or simply that God had an answer that you in your limited knowledge, and understanding had not anticipated.

Whichever the case , it is always best to trust God even when we don't understand his reasoning.

God is never caught off guard, he has never had nor will he ever have a "wow I never saw that coming."  moment,  He knows the beginning and the end of everything.

This is why we can trust him with all our heart, even when we don't understand the details, acknowledge that he knows what is best, and allow him to direct you to what is best.

When we make this a way of life.

We will find ourselves truly living in peace.

For out side of his peace is stress and worry which takes from the life,

that he sent his Son Jesus to give to us.



An Instant Society Wants Instant Christianity

We have become a society that wants everything instantly.

We don't want to wait for anything.

We want instant cocoa, instant oatmeal, microwave meals to speed up cooking, fast food restaurants so we can get a quick bite to eat, we use our fax machines, computers, and mobile phones so we can send and receive information instantly.

We get angry and have road rage if  pedestrians have not made it across the street when our light turns green.

We are angry if someone ahead of us is driving the speed limit, but we want them to go faster so we can get to our destination instantly.

We have gotten to a point that if things are not done instantly we get upset, frustrated, stressed, or just down right mad.

Why are we in such a hurry?

We don't care to do anything that requires time and patients, for we have none.

We want what we want and we want it NOW!

Generally speaking, anything worth while takes time, and requires a process.

When we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior,

we have made a decision to allow him not only to help us, but to take us through a process.

Most of us don't realize that this is what we are agreeing to, when we accept Christ, but in fact, that is exactly what we are doing.

This process of transformation, like many other processes, take time and patience, and requires  commitment.

Are you committed to allowing the Lord to take you through and help you through the Christian Life Process?

It won't be easy, nor instant, but It will be well worth it.

James 1;2-4"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience, but let patience have it's perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing."



Unlearing vs Learning

There is always those who feel it quite challenging to learn new things,

but have you ever considered how challenging it is to unlearn bad teaching?

The difficulties one has to unlearn bad habits that have been picked up along life's journey

and etched into a persons character over a coarse of years?

If we really take time and think about a new life in Christ,  living as a  true child of God,

does that present itself as being quite challenging?

We have all been taught the worlds way of dealing with and responding to things of this world.

The worlds view and God's view are through completely different eyes, and are contrary to one another.

The world way's and God's ways are in opposition to one another.

The worlds way of dealing with someone who has wronged you, is to get them back.

God's way is to forgive them.

The worlds way of dealing with difficult people is avoid them, ignore them, speak badly of them or to them.

God's way is to pray for them, love them and not return wrong with wrong.

The worlds view of money, is the more you get the more you have to spend to get nicer or more things, the happier you will be.

God's view is, the more money you have, the more you are able to give to helping others, the more you share and help others the happier and more blessed you will be.

We have all been taught the worlds way of managing life,  but as a child of God we are to let go, to unlearn the old, and open ourselves to learning a new way of living, A Godly way of living.

2Corinthians 5:17"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here.

Are you up for a challenge, unlearning v.s. learning challenge?

That you may learn to live more Christ like.



Do We Bring Out The Best In Each Other?

When you are choosing who to let in your inner circle as a friend,

Do you ever consider what you and that person bring into each others circle?

Do either of you bring baggage of negativity?

How about drama of situations & relationships?

Do either of you bring gossip, and back biting?

If your answer is yes to any of the above, and you are not the one bringing it, 

Are you strong enough to bring them out of the negativity, drama, gossip or whatever it maybe that weighs on a friendship.

Either way, if your relationship with a person does not bring out the best in them, and vice versa, is the relationship any good for either of you?

Maybe on up the road, as you grow stronger in confidence, knowing who you truly are, you will have an opportunity to really impact that persons life in a positive way.

As you seek the Lord through his word, your mind should constantly go through renewing.

With your renewed mind, you have change in your thoughts, which brings about change in your actions.

As you continue this renewing process of your mind and are being transformed in your character, you will want to be a blessing to others, including your friends,  not being conformed by theirs or others bad habits,  that they may see the change in you and hopefully and prayerfully see hope for their own ability for change,  and be better.

So again ask yourself, do you and your friends bring out the best in each other?



Perception Deception

I find that often times we are deceived by our thoughts of God.

There are those who's view of God is that he is this big powerful spiritual bully

waiting for you  and I to make  mistakes, do wrong, so that he can punish us, or worse, send you to hell.

They are deceived into thinking, we some how have got to get this Christianity thing down pat or else, we are doomed, the big G is going to get us.

Why do we associate such harsh actions with a God that is said to be loving?

A God who himself is said to embody love and is love.

The word of God says in 2Peter 3:9"The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."

It seems that our perception of God needs some work.

The truth of the matter is God does not send anyone to hell, people send themselves.

The way of escape has been provided, payment for ALL offenses has been made,  forgiveness of sin has been provided, a helper in your new way of life has been provided, and instruction has been provided, but yet some choose not to accept any of God's provisions.

There are those who stay viewing through a shattered glass and their view is distorted.

These individuals continue with this deception, because of wrong perception.

 



Morsels of Truth: Teaching Moments

Morsels of Truth: Teaching Moments: God knew we were not going to be perfect, he knew there would be many mistakes along the way. This is why he gave us his only begotten Son,...

Open Up

When you allow past negative experiences to bring you to a place where you close your heart,

 your mind, or your hands, you trap the pain and hurt of those experiences into those very places,

where emotions such as fear, anger and shame are locked in, tormenting you.

The torment of your heart makes you unwilling to let anyone close enough

to share real love, you keep your heart closed and guarded, trapping in the poison, and the antidote for that poison locked out.

The torment of your mind keeps you unwilling to let go of the memories that replay in your head like a recording, and your mind is made up that this is what will happen again if you allow it.

The door of your mind is now closed locking in the negative, and out any positive.

The torment to your hands is that you will try to hold on so tightly to a little something,

that you never open your hands wide enough if at all to receive the big something that awaits you, therefore never allowing yourself the chance to experience more than enough.

The Lord wants you to open up your heart, your mind and your hands, so that you may receive the abundance of his grace, his goodness.

Are you ready to open up?

Teaching Moments

God knew we were not going to be perfect, he knew there would be many mistakes along the way. This is why he gave us his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus paid the price for our many mistakes, yet we have to deal with the natural consequences of the mistakes made. 

This is simply God working things out for our good.

He uses our mistakes as teaching moments, for us to get better, and do better, so that we don't have to experience that negative consequence again.