Blessing is ours!

God wants us blessed, plain and simple. We can't bless others if we are not blessed ourselves so it's time that we started believing for more so we can do more for the Kingdom of God.
 
In Psalm 24 we read, starting at verse 3, "Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? Or who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, Who has not lifted up his soul to an idol, Nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive blessing from the LORD, And righteousness/vindication from the God of his salvation." (italics mine)

Psalm 112 we read, "Praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man. (Psalm 112: 1-4)

Now don't reason yourself out of God's blessings for any reason. His grace is enough.  God knew that we could not do it so He sent his son, Jesus and Jesus fulfilled all the righteous requirements of the law.

That's how we apply Galations 3:13.  Jesus became a curse so that we could have the blessings he deserved.  He had a clean hands and  a pure heart.  He did all that we could not do so that we can boldly say, "Jesus' blessings are mine, now!"

You might not know how to turn things around so that you can come out blessed in your particular situation but Ps. 112:4 gives us the answer.  Even in our deepest darkness, LIGHT (revelation) dawns for the upright, for the gracious and compassionate and righteous man/woman. Hallelujah!  

We have the right to ask God what to say or do to command our situation to turn into a blessing. Then we stand with a thankful attitude, having done what He told us to do and watch things turn around. 
Psalm 112 doesn't end there. In verse 7 we read, "He will have no fear of bad news; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. His heart is secure, he will have no fear; in the end he will look in triumph on his foes."

God wants us to have no fear over bad news!  As things are shaking economically around us and our livlihoods are being affected God wants us to know what to do.    He wants us to trust in Him, to trust in His great and precious promises.  He wants us to look in triumph over all our foes at the end of the battle.(vs 7)

Lack, poverty, famine, sickness, disease, mental infirmity,  all these foes must bow to the name of Jesus!

I love that verse about having no fear over bad news.  If there was ever a time to meditate on that verse it's now. 

For example, we waited too long to make dentist appointments for our 3 children and then I lost my job so we had to postpone them again.  I was starting to claim dental health, but at that point I had not had a breakthrough personally.  I asked the Lord one day if I could make appointments for the kids and I heard yes, so without any money on hand I booked appointments for myself and the kids.  I had no clue where the money was going to come from but I was standing.  Every day I tried to praise and worship the Lord and then when His presence would show up I would ask him to provide for the dentist.

Three days later my husband came home with a cheque for $1650.00 from a completely unexpected source. He started to cry when he told me about it, shocked and amazed at God's goodness and the kindness of the man who helped us.

Isn't God good? I should say so.  We claimed multiplied blessings back to the man who obeyed Holy Spirit's prompting and I set the money aside for the dentist. I want to be faithful with what God has given me.

So I can say this works.  I have many more testimonies to share when I get some time.
Have fun meditating on God's promises for you.  He really does want you blessed so you can be a blessing!

Negative to Positive

I was ready to smack her I thought. I haven't had the urge to smack someone in public ever. Yes, this lady really got under my skin, but my reaction was "out of character." I recognized that I was offended, so I quickly excused myself and started praying.

So where were all these negative emotions coming from, you ask? Her digging into my husband's employment status and especially her cliches. When she said, "And God will look after him, if he's trusting in Him." really got me revved up. This is a lady who is well looked after, with no financial struggles and she has the nerve to say something that insensitive! At least preface that kind of statement with, "God looked after me when.... so I know He'll look after you now."

You have got to shake your head at some people. "Lord I forgive her. Help her to be more considerate of people's feelings. Lord help me to be more considerate of people's feelings and not "come across" as insensitive. Amen." I recognize that "spirit of offense" that operates around her now.

What got me upset was the "works mentality" she confessed. God will look after my husband because God loves him, not because my husband is doing good works, so he deserves looking after. All any of us deserve is Hell, but because the Father loved us so much, He sent His Son to take our sin upon himself and redeem us. (see Titus 2:12) "We were bought with a price." ( 1Cor 6:20) We are not our own.

We are not saved by grace and kept by law or works. No, No, No. The whole letter to the Galatians was written to address this problem. The whole deal, from start to finish is grace. "I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness [come] by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. " (Gal 2:21)

My husband is looking to Jesus, not to himself for help and direction. All, I repeat "all our righteousness (self effort) is as filthy rags", to God.(Isa 64:6) We do not do to get, we do because we have been touched by so much love, in Jesus, that we want to share it. Our motivation has been changed by the lover of our souls -- Jesus. Does that mean we just sit around and wait for pie in the sky? No, it means we ask Him every day, "What would you have me do and say today Lord?" That is submitting your will and desires to the Lord.

Even the world has the belief system, "do good, get good" and "do bad, get bad." There is no miracle in believing that. But when we get good for all our bad --that's a miracle. That is grace. We exchange all our efforts for Jesus' finished work on the cross and God declares us, "NOT GUILTY!" That is a miracle.

If for some reason we don't get looked after I would not blame God. He is love and He can't change. Sometimes when the pressure is on, people will jump and make hasty decisions. I know I have missed God's voice plenty of times and got the resulting mess. That is not God's fault. He has given us all free will. He can turn all our bad mistakes to good if we will allow Him to, it just might take a bit of time. Like someone once told me, we all have a destiny and God can get us back on track whenever we turn to Him, so that we get to the important junctions in our lives at the right time. It's our choice whether we arrive at these junctions smelling like roses or barnyard stuff.

Blessing and provision have got a lot to do with what we believe. If we believe we are blessed and highly favored, we will be. If we believe that God's deserted us and bad things are coming, then bad things will come. (See Prov 23:7) Look at Joseph. It didn't matter where he ended up he brought God's blessing with him because he believed he was Abraham's seed and thus blessed. A real good question to ask is, "What do I believe?" We can determine what we believe by what we say, especially when we are under pressure. Truly, by our words we are justified and by our words we are condemned. (Matt 12:37)

Someone told me once that demons are attracted to voiced negative emotions the way sharks are attracted to blood in the water. The louder the negative emotions we give voice to, the more demons we attract spiritually. Guess what? I have been a lot more careful about what I give vent to lately. LOL

Finally, in these troubled times, God gave me some verses to meditate on and claim that I will share with you, to encourage you. The first one is, "I have been young, and [now] am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread." (Psalm 37:25)
The second is Psalm 112...
"1Praise ye the LORD. Blessed [is] the man [that] feareth the LORD, [that] delighteth greatly in his commandments. 2His seed shall be mighty upon earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. 3Wealth and riches [shall be] in his house: and his righteousness endureth for ever. 4Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness: [he is] gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous 5A good man sheweth favour, and lendeth: he will guide his affairs with discretion. 6Surely he shall not be moved for ever: the righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance. 7He shall not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. 8His heart [is] established, he shall not be afraid, until he see [his desire] upon his enemies. 9He hath dispersed, he hath given to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; his horn shall be exalted with honour. 10The wicked shall see [it], and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish."

Thanks for reading. I feel much better now.
Big hugs and blessings,
Brenda Gale