Blessing God
7/7/15
How often do we think about this phrase and do we really understand what this phrase entails? It should not be difficult to reason this phrase out but when you place it into the hands of humans we have a way of messing it up so that we can use it for our own benefit instead of God’s. It is important for us to try our best to limit our selfish wants long enough to truly give thanks for what God has bestowed upon us and our nation. Yet, as each day passes we allow the enemy’s kingdom to infiltrate our lives almost unabated and block out our mission to bless God. Restoration is a good thing and it is a process that we need to completely incorporate back into our lives or one day soon our blessings shall be gone.
As a nation, have we ever asked ourselves how we can bless God or have we just stuck to “God Bless America”? I have to admit that I have never thought of turning that phrase around and using it in this manner, but it makes perfect sense to not only turn this phrase around but to put this new meaning into practice as well. This brings up the logical questions of how to complete this mission and does this phrase America, bless God actually have merit? This will be the topic of this article and while I cannot take credit for the original usage of this phrase it is an important one that we need to understand and use every day of our lives, for if we do not God shall have no choice but to take our blessings away.
The first question above asked: does this phrase actually fall into the category of our mission that Christ gave to us when He was on the earth? The answer to that question is “yes, it does.” So much so that it is the centerpiece of our mission and the portion that defines the mission itself. There is no question that Jesus commanded us to go to the world and preach the gospel and not many children of God will argue that. IF, we can get past our denominational hang-ups and forget about our selfish feelings we can actually accomplish this task as Jesus commanded us. The completion of the mission that Jesus told us to do fulfills our blessing God, and it also advances His Kingdom and pushes back the kingdom of this world. Living under His commandments and laws also blesses God for it proves to Him that we really do love Him and that we wish to separate from this world.
For as long as the Church has been standing on the earth, humans have tried their best to fill their own pews with their converts. This conversion has been accomplished in various forms and has even included taxing, punishment and through torture and death; what kind of godly conversion tactics do these represent? I am certain that Jesus did not mean to go into all parts of the world and kill people in His name, even though we have many within the walls of the Church who continue to do this practice today. Christians may not physically kill people but their harsh treatment of those who do not know God have spurned a horrific worldly backlash that has not been witnessed in a while. Plus, allowing the spirit of the world to come into the Church and safely harbor there without the truth being told to them, acts in the same manner, but the death is eternal.
Witnessing is not a job but an opportunity to show people that there is a true and complete alternative to the world and its standards. We should be demonstrating to them that God’s laws are designed for our protection through separation from the world, not incorporating it and weaving it into our lives. Our problem is that we as Christians have failed to understand God’s laws adequately enough to complete the mission that Jesus told us to do and this lack of knowledge has brought us to a standstill today and we are now faced with a huge spiritual battle that we have no idea how to combat, which means that we do not understand how we are to effectively witness to people. And if we do not understand the true meaning of God’s laws and we do not understand how to witness to people, then we have no idea, on a godly level, of what our blessings really mean.
The only way that we can begin to figure out God’s blessings is to understand that there are two kingdoms vying for our eternal life and through these kingdoms our spiritual and physical lives play out. We need to remember that our enemy already has won our physical death and there is no reason for him to vie for that portion of our life, it is the spiritual portion that is most important because spirit is eternal and which direction we eternally place ourselves is strictly up to us; our choice only! We also must understand that the world and everything that it stands for shall always be against God and His Kingdom. It seems like the Church has forgotten this concept and that through this forgetting process have softened our stance against our enemy. It is not the will of our enemy for us to live with three meals a day in our bellies. It is not the will of our enemy and the ruler of this world for any of us to live in peace and be content with our neighbors. His job is to blind our hearts enough that we forget where these blessings come from and what will happen if we go long enough without remembering their origin.
What good does it do if you feed a person but do not feed their spirit at the same time? Yes, physically feeding the poor and homeless are good qualities but unless we witness to them we are only completing our mission on a 50 percentile range which in is a failing grade in any teacher’s grade book. Is this blessing God or is it satisfying a certain amount of charity that we believe is necessary in order to justify the way in which we ourselves have been blessed? When the disciples met the beggar at the gate of the city they had nothing monetary to give but they did say that they had something better and they took the opportunity to witness to the man; eternal concepts came into play in this setting. If we do not place this type of eternal concern upon people’s lives, it is this type of belief that will resonate that we have no idea of why God placed His laws into existence with the exception of gaveled follow through. This process resoundingly answers the first question that it is part of our mission to understand God’s laws completely and not just through human and earthly thinking.
How can we bless God is the second question that is asked and while a portion of this question is answered through the first question and answer, there is another part that needs to be understood before we can bless God as we should. It has been stated ever since this country was created that it was a land of opportunity. It does not matter whether or not one believes in God, all of us have used this particular ideology in order to strive to make it in this world, but it all falls back upon the human in order for us to complete this opportunity. But in order for us to understand this mechanism, we must concede that God is the Originator of such opportunity and it is through His origins that we can pursue the dreams and desires that we dare to risk.
If we ignore the person that created everything or fail to understand all of His ways and means then we are taking for granted what we have and will soon become an advocate of self indulgence instead of blessings. If allowed to grow long enough that ideology will become an internal law and then demand payment at the cost of others. We cannot afford to stop at just using the 10 Commandments when we wish, it is imperative that we grasp the concept that they were put in place for a specific reason which is the separation of God’s people from the world. There cannot be ANY wavering from this truth because when we do, it can become easy to get sucked into the world’s philosophy that God is a lie and does not exist.
This brings me to a short video that I watched a short time ago from a person who has a weekly Bible study at one of the local coffee shops in the town where he lives. His videos are not very long, have a compact message for the people that choose to listen to what God is saying to the world, and at the end he is always giving thanks to God for every blessing that he sees each day. But this last video was different in the fact that instead of him saying “God Bless America” the personality said that America should bless God instead. It was through this video that this concept was brought to my attention and it was also through this video that God is using in order for His people to be shown what it means to understand what His blessings actually mean to our lives.
Blessings that this country has benefited from over the centuries does NOT come from the world, they come strictly from God. We continually see our blessings each time we wake up with a roof over our head, or every time we start our vehicle to go to work or to the grocery store. We flow through our daily lives and buy up items that we really do not need but see and want for physical consumption or usage. Our duty is not to live through these blessings and fail to see the true reasons why we have them. It is our duty to live through these blessings and share them with others and to tell the people that we share them with that God is the provider of all blessings, not the world. It is through this process that we bless God and it is through this concept that we fulfill our mission to spread the gospel of Christ.
How is this country blessing God? Is this country obeying God’s laws or is she thumbing her nose up at Him? When you ask yourself these questions, answer them honestly and according to what God says in His Word. Be honest with yourself in that if you really do not know why God has commissioned His laws, that you would go and study the Bible well enough and then place humanity within those settings then make a comparison and you will see, if you have performed this with a level and honest heart, that both settings are the same. God had no choice but to examine the human heart and understand what it was going to follow. God designed His laws in order for our hearts to stay as pure as possible while our presence is on this sinful realm and it is through these laws that we stay upright in God’s eyes and provide a method of eternal escape from death. This is an example of what it means to live through the blessings of God and to bless God in return.
We can bless God by understanding the full meaning of His Word and what it says about the world. The Bible becomes a wonderful tool for our hearts to witness to others who do not know God, but if we ourselves do not first understand why things are the way they are, we cannot give an adequate foundation to those who have no true foundation. Using God’s Word for personal gain or as a proving ground is only a provocation of war and to use His word in this manner can only result in further division both from God and from mankind. Living holy and righteous lives through God’s laws gives us the true freedom which every human desires and longs to inhabit. The world cannot provide anyone with this peace for the world deceives people into living its ways and then enslaves them according to its flawed ways.
The only way that we can truly live free lives is for us to study God’s Word and to allow His spirit to engulf our lives in a personal way that we can begin to understand what our surroundings bring us. To bless God is to allow Him access to our entire life and to place His ways above all others. Look at our country and then ask yourself who this country is blessing? The answer is easy and if we continue to follow in our own choices, our blessings shall be taken away. God has never once apologized for the things that He has had to do in order to get His people to comply with His laws; there is a reason for that! We need to restore both our spiritual and physical lives back to God by putting Him number one in our lives, not number 1.2 million. Church, you are physically wide awake but spiritually blind to what is going on around you and you rule with your physical sense of touch, rather by spiritual faith.
There is a simple formula here and it goes like this: if we completely bless God by honoring and keeping His laws and commandments His blessings shall to continue to pour out His blessings upon this nation and everyone who lives under His guidance and protection. We can avoid God’s coming judgment if we turn away from this world now. We are all playing with a holy fire that none of wish to witness but if we continue, God has every bit of authority to take away what He has given. God proves Himself through His blessings and He also proves Himself through His judgments when needed. It is either we come back to God or He will have to remind us that it is He that is consistent in all of His ways and not humanity. God loves you and wants His blessings to be upon us at all times. Bless God at all times for He has blessed us first.
DLB
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