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Blessings
by Steve Countryman When you think of blessings do think of financial blessings? Most people do. Some will add good health or healing to the list. Blessing is defined as: 1. The act of one that blesses. 2. A short prayer said before or after a meal; grace. 3. Something promoting or contributing to happiness, wellbeing, or prosperity. There is a lot more to blessings then what we think of. We often miss obvious blessings because of our perspective on happenstance or decisions that we make. God's will is to bless you beyond your wildest imagination. Blessings are often missed two ways. First by our limited point of view or our limits on them, and second by our disobedience that hinders them! If you were growing crops all of the water you receive comes by way of a ditch from a nearby river. The water is your blessings. The ditch is how your blessings are delivered. You wouldn't take a pile of rocks and dirt and dump them in the middle of your ditch to block the flow of your blessings! But that is exactly what you do when we don't see them as blessings, or you take them for granted and by your disobedience. If you are the ditch, as described above, you are blessed by the blessing that you are receiving and you are blessed again by delivering the blessings. We are not to be containers of God's blessings but to be spillers of God's blessings. It blesses God when you bless others! How many times have you ended complaining about one of God's blessings? So much so that you missed out on the blessing altogether. Just because the blessing didn't come the way you wanted the blessing to or in the time you wanted the blessing or through the person you wanted the blessing to come. How many times have you limited God's blessings in your life because God answered your prayers differently than you expected Him to? Can you afford to miss out on ANY of God's blessings in your life? Can you trust God who is always looking out for your good to bless you His way and in His time? In a society that is always looking for someone to blame and accepts no responsibility or accountability for their actions, it is no surprised that God gets blamed for our poor decisions. Sad truth is that God seldom gets credit for our blessings. Your positive perspective and hindsight will help you to recognize God's blessings in your life if you will take the time to think about them. Yes, count your blessings! You have much to be thankful for. God deserves you thankfulness, praise and worship. You thank Him for His goodness, you praise Him for His greatness and you worship Him for His holiness. By thanking God you acknowledge what God has done for you. By praising God you give God recognition of how great God is to you. By worshiping God you show God that He is holy and sacred to you. Ephesians 1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Life is a journey of preparation that you take before you enter eternity. How you prepare now will affect your eternity. Blessings are meant to help and encourage you along your journey while bolstering your faith. There are two basic blessings. The common one is the travel blessing. That is the one that covers your health, shelter, finances, job and belongings. These would be things needed on your journey as you travel through life. The other is spiritual blessings. These are blessings that impact your spiritual growth. Spiritual blessings are blessings that bring salvation, deliverance, healing (mind, body and relationships), revelation, supernatural giftings and wisdom! Your journey has a destination and a reward at the end in heaven. Your job is to get to heaven and receive your reward. It is the path it takes to arrive that you must follow. Only one path will take you there. All other paths lead to death and destruction! Along your journey you find travel blessings. They are easier to spot then the spiritual blessings and they help sustain you on your journey. The spiritual blessings take extra effort in searching for them. They maybe disguised as a "broken down" traveler along the path that needs help. If you pass them by you will miss out on the spiritual blessing that was meant for you. Both blessings are meant to help you stay on the correct path on your journey. To often Christians get hung up on the travel blessings that they loose sight of the purpose of their journey. You are a supernatural being living in a natural body in the natural world. You must keep your eyes on God by keeping your head in His cloud of glory while the rest of your body is here in the natural. When you take your eyes off of Jesus and you start looking down at the natural instead of looking up at God's supernatural, then the natural will pull you back down out of His presence and out of His glory! Keep your eyes on Jesus, keep your mind open to His will, the moving of His Holy Spirit and be obedient to His voice, then the blessings will flow to you and through you! Part of being truly blessed is allowing God to bless others through you! It's not how many blessings you receive that counts but how often you bless others. Are you ready?!? Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com |