Have you ever heard the phrase “Count your blessings.”? If you think about that it, it really isn't a good phrase. In order to count your blessings, you have to keep score, and you do not want to keep score with God. When you do, you will be disappointed. You will count the blessings, and then you will think that there should be more. You will also begin to think that is how God blesses, and then when God wants to bless you in other ways, you will miss it. As humans, we tend to think that we should get the same result, but God wants to do so much more for you.
Sometimes when we count our blessings, we then ask God for one more thing. God can and will do one more thing, but what if God wanted to do 10 more things? We have then in turn actually limited God in how much He can bless us by putting our own qualifications on it and Him.
When we "count our blessings", that saying also indicates that we should be satisfied with the "little" God did for us. God does not want to just do "little" things for you. He may do a bunch of what you call little things, that then produce something amazing.
The story is told of two women in Shanghai who were discussing the topic of pride and began to wonder if Hudson Taylor was ever tempted to be prideful because of his many accomplishments. One of the women decided to ask Taylor’s wife, Maria, about it. Maria promised the woman that she would find out. When Mrs. Taylor asked her husband if he was ever tempted to be proud, he was surprised. “Proud about what?” he asked. “About all of the things you have done,” his wife explained. Taylor responded, “I never knew I had done anything.”
Live like you haven’t done anything. Let God be the Judge, not only of what is wrong, but of what is right! Let God do right by you with no restrictions.
In Luke 14:28, God tells us what we should count, "For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it."
We are to count the cost of following Jesus, and it will cost you something to truly follow Him. To truly follow Jesus, you have to surrender your whole life to Him. Let me say that again, your WHOLE life. Everything that is a part of your life, to be used by Jesus when Jesus needs it.
That is a huge cost, and Jesus wants to know if you are really in.
Now, here is the good part, when you do choose to count the cost, Jesus does the same. Jesus knows that we will need help, because we may not know how much we have to give. It won’t be enough to do all He wants to do, and that is where the blessings will come, to not only make up the difference, to not only get the job done, but to also reward you for your service.
You go all in, and Jesus will go all in with you, but if you only go part way in, what do you expect Jesus to do?
Now, depending on where you are in your walk with Jesus, being "all in" will look different for each of us. We are in a relationship, and Jesus will see our heart on this journey. Hebrews 4:12. He knows when you are all in. He also knows that each of us have a different definition of that, and as we continue on this journey, we will find that our definition of all in will change, and we will see God bless us even more.
Count the Cost and accept it, and you won’t have to count the blessings, because you won’t be able to keep up with how much God wants to bless you!
Remember Jesus loves you; I love you, and you are awesome!
God helps those who help themselves. Have you ever heard that phrase? Many people use it, but it really isn’t good.
This phrase allows people to justify not helping someone else. When they use it this way, they apply their standard to the situation. That is a dangerous place to be, because God will judge you by the measure or standards you use.
Others use this phrase to say that God owes them something for all that they did. News flash, God does not owe you anything. We are always in debt to God. The great news is, that God never wants to collect on that debt. He just wants to forgive.
Now, God does want you to work and enjoy the pleasures of having a purpose in this life. So, let’s change this statement a little to bring it in line with what God teaches.
We are in a relationship, and we need to view God in light of the relationship that God desperately wants to have with us.
God blesses (better than helps) those who put God’s interests above their own. When you do that, you in effect are helping yourself, but you are not putting yourself first.
In a relationship, the key is to put the other’s needs in front of yours. When you do, the one who loves you should respond in kind, simply because they love you.
When you do this, God, since He is God, has the ability to help or bless you beyond what you can imagine.
You can’t do anything to make God bless you. What you can do, is impress the one you love in such a way that God is inspired by your actions of selfless love to want to bless you in a dramatic way.
When this happens, it is glorious, and you really feel the love. If God does something for you simply because you helped yourself, then it is not out of love, but out of obligation. When someone does something nice for anyone out of obligation it is hollow and cold at best.
When someone blesses you because they were inspired to do so, it's warm and loving and means so much more. That is what God wants to do for us.
What God wants to know is, are we serving Him out of obligation, or are we serving Him simply out of love, just because?
God loves it when we do things for Him for no other reason than, “just because". God then responds to show you how much He loves you, “just because".
Remember Jesus loves you; I love you, and you are awesome!
The devil and others love to bring up our past. When that happens, we feel inadequate, and even unworthy of Jesus’ love. It makes us doubt if we really have a part in God’s plan. This happens to all of us at one point or another on this journey. God does not want your past to dominate your present, and God definitely does not want it to affect your future destiny.
In order for God to do all the wonderful things He wants to do for us, we have to realize we have been forgiven, and accept that Jesus has made the past, just that, the past. It has no control over us anymore.
One of the tricks the enemy uses against us is this phrase, "Well, you have to forgive yourself first.". This sounds good, and seems to make sense, but this is from the pit of hell. If you have tried this, it is very hard, and it is hard for a very good reason, because you can’t, which is actually good.
In order to forgive yourself, you have to relive those past events in your mind that you really don’t want to relive again. When we do relive it, we actually feel worse about ourselves because we see how dumb we were and then the "what ifs" come in. What if I just did that differently? What if I avoided that one thing? We then go down a spiral and not only do we not forgive ourselves, but we also get to a point where we don’t want to forgive ourselves.
God does not want you to forgive yourself, because the Good News, and it is Good News, is that you CAN’T. Only God can forgive us. We have to realize that we don’t need anyone to forgive us, but God. God is the only one with a vote that counts in the end.
Stop trying to forgive yourself, because you can’t. Give it to God, because God wants to forgive you, and then accept the fact that God has forgiven you.
In Psalm 103, David deals with this. David did a lot of things in his past, just like us. The whole Psalm is an inspiring read, but there are a couple of verses that are simply amazing.
Psalm 103:2-3: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities."
Psalm 103:12: "As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us."
There is nothing God will not forgive, and secondly, when God forgives, He forgets it ever happened!
Stop trying to forgive yourself, and accept the fact that Jesus is more than willing to forgive you and forget that it ever happened. Stop reliving your past like it matters, because it doesn’t.
So, when the devil tries to remind you of your past, take a moment and remind the devil what God says about you. Then remind the devil of his future in hell, and your eternal glory in heaven, because you are forgiven and your past is simply that, just your past. It is not who you are now!
Pass this along to someone who is struggling today, so that they can be set free!!
Remember Jesus loves you; I love you, and you are awesome!
LEARN MORE
What is God’s will for my life? I get asked that a lot, and a lot of people say that they just want to do God’s will. A lot of people get frustrated with their faith, because they wonder if they will ever know what His will is.