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January, 2007 Bible Mini-Study
Receive God’s Blessings!
God’s blessings flow from His love. Our heavenly Father loves us fully, infinitely and tenderly because He created us. However, if we do not believe that He loves us (or if we think we do not need it), we will have difficulty believing He wants to bless us. All of God’s creatures need His love and His blessings.
There is a difference between knowing about God’s love and experiencing His love. We read about it and we talk about it, but much of it remains only head knowledge. It is when we trust our disappointments and our hopes to Him that His love becomes real and we believe in His desire to bless us.
“I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them . . . I will rejoice in doing them good . . . with all my heart and soul.”
Jeremiah 32:40-41
“The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17
All of us occasionally doubt God’s love, especially when our circumstances are difficultWe have to remind ourselves that we are not to look at our circumstances and judge by them how much or how little God loves us. Rather, we are to look at our circumstances and thank Him that He is seeing us through them, transforming our troubles into good and bringing us blessing because He loves us.
We are God’s children, vessels into which He pours His blessings. What are the things that keep us from receiving these? The greatest burden we carry in life is self: our doubt and depression about ourselves, our fear and anger about our circumstances, our lack of control and lack of love in our relationships. Our negative feelings indicate our lack of faith in God.
Let us look at some of our more common negative thoughts: anger, guilt, unforgiveness, rebellion and self-pity. When fear is present, faith is lacking. From time to time, all of us suffer from fear of the future, especially the fear of failure, rejection, loneliness or pain. Unfortunately, we are believing in what we fear will happen rather than believing in what we have faith will happen. We help to bring about whatever we believe will happen. (Job 3:25-26) It is God’s promise that His love will heal our fear. (I John 4:18) We need to pray first for help to receive God’s love and then for deliverance from our fears.
There is righteous anger that is justified (when something or someone innocent is harmed). There is selfish anger that is unjustified. It arises when we feel threatened. Selfish anger indicates our lack of faith that God is allowing our circumstances for a reason -- to bring His highest and best to us.
The appropriate time to address or express our anger is when we have regained some control over our emotions and some insight into our circumstances. “In your anger do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.” Psalm 4:4
Some of us lack faith in God’s forgiveness. We do not believe that confession and repentance are effective. We stay in the darkness of our guilt, afraid that exposure of our wrongs will bring punishment. David wrote about the problem of repressing sin and the benefit of confession. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.” “Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgression to the Lord — and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him and in whose spirit is no deceit.’ ” Psalm 32:3,5 and 32:2
When we do not fully believe in God’s forgiveness, guilt remains and, even though we have confessed our wrong, we may not be able to forgive ourselves. Some of us may need to ask God for the faith to believe that He has forgiven us. A few of us may have to declare each day, “I am loved and forgiven,” until we thoroughly believe it.
In addition to our negative feelings, any deliberate disobedience or decision to withhold forgiveness of another blocks us from receiving God’s blessings. We are rebelling and we are determined to manage our own lives. We lack faith that God knows what is best for us. We believe the lie that our harmful actions are not separating us from God and we will not suffer the consequences. We also believe that sins against us are more serious than our lack of forgiveness of those who hurt us.
Do we feed negative thoughts to ourselves, allowing them to affect who we are, or do we face our negative thoughts and seek the truth regarding them? We are not to ignore the thoughts and feelings that trouble us. We are to acknowledge them and give them to God. Our goal should be to a replace our negative thinking with positive thinking. Affirming the positive rather than the negative takes self-discipline
“We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” Hebrews 6:11-12
God wants to please His children, yet just as a father hopes that his gifts to his children will be appreciated and not taken for granted, our heavenly Father wants us to respond to Him with gratitude. Gratitude is a desirable virtue because it is evidence of our trust in God and keeps our hearts open to His further blessings. Frances Roberts wrote:
“By prayer and faith doors are opened, but by praise and worship, great dynamos of power are set in motion. Praying for specifics is like requesting light for individual houses in various scattered places, while worshiping and praise flood the whole area with available current.” “Come away My Beloved”, King’s Farspan, Inc.
In our darkest hours, if our hearts will turn to God in worship, we are comforted and our faith strengthens. It is like a flowing river carrying away our disappointments and painful sorrows and bringing hope and a new beginning. It is easy to praise God when things are going well, but there are times when it is extremely difficult to do so. In these times, we praise Him simply out of obedience. We do not have to be thankful for our circumstances, but we are to be thankful and praise Him that He will see us through our circumstances. Praise helps get the focus off our problems and onto God for His answers. It breaks the bonds of our negative feelings and we are open vessels once again to receive the bountiful blessings of God!
A Thought to Ponder
If you want to grow in your love of God, you can ask Him to help you trust Him and receive His love more and more. It will be God’s delight to answer your prayer.
Suggestions for Prayer-Listening
Lord Jesus, is there some area of my life where negative thinking has become a bad habit?
Heal me of the reason I do this, Lord, and help me to affirm the positive in my life instead of the negative.
Suggestion for Meditation
Meditate slowly on the following:
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything, tell God your needs and don’t forget to thank Him for his answers. If you do this you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus. . . Fix your thoughts on what is true and good and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely, and dwell on the fine, good things in others. Think about all you can praise God for and be glad about it.” Philippians 4:6-8 LB
I begin each morning by thanking God for giving me the day as a gift of His love. When I retire at night, I try to remember to review the day and praise Him for His blessings. I release my feelings to Him, my love and my praise as well as the burdens on my heart. This helps me to live in His love in an ever-increasing way.
Trusting everything to God gives Him opportunities to show His love for us and to grant us the gifts of His Spirit that we need to be His ambassadors. When we practice trusting and praising Him, we see our lives and ministry transformed by His blessings!