Deuteronomy 12:6-8 "There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks. And there you shall eat before the LORD your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the LORD your God has blessed you. “You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes.”
I remember an old song lyric that went: “Hey Mister, Where you going in such a hurry. Don't you think it's time you realized there's a whole lot more to life than work and worry. The sweetest things in life are free and there right before your eyes. You got to stop and smell the roses. You've got to count your many blessings everyday. You're gonna find your way to heaven is a rough and rocky road, if you don't stop and smell the roses along the way.” I’ve talked to many who blindly rush through life daily, missing the true blessings found only in the Lord. Why? We fell from communion with Creator God in original sin and have a “God-shaped hole in our heart that we long to fill. Until we accept the free gift of redemption, reconciliation and restoration of our righteousness in personal relationship with our Father in Heaven through the payment in full of our sins by the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross, we seek the joy of salvation without any true satisfaction for our soul. Proverbs 10:6 “Blessings are on the head of the righteous, but violence covers the mouth of the wicked.”
Coming to a “saving” knowledge of Jesus Christ, we still live in a fallen world, where secular humanism, existentialism, materialism, hedonism, and false religions blindly seek to fill that same God-shaped hole in darkness; some seeking the truth and some running from the truth found only in God’s plan of salvation. The messages and godless pursuits of this lost and dying world always look for love, joy and peace in the wrong direction, when it looks away from the kingdom of God. Matthew 6:32-34 “For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” God never said that we’d not have trouble or no problems in this life. He said that we’d have Him with us to handle them, with blessings and an eternal home. The sacrifices today are the leaving of our sinful desires in the flesh (Romans 12:1) and walking obediently in the Spirit of God (Galatians 5:24-25), seeking first the kingdom of God daily, influence our culture and society through the love of God by speaking the truth of the gospel. Helping others in mind, body and soul to find the foot of the Cross where they too shall find what their heart has always been seeking in the Lord, supporting the church and the body of Christ in true ministry, fellowship and worship. We are in this unholy world, but no longer of this unholy world. There are two worlds (the unsaved and the saved), two roads that people are on, and two destinations at the end. One lined with busyness & fruitless distractions unto destruction and one, lined with spiritual roses, unto eternal life that we can stop and smell every day. The fallen world is doing what is right in their own eyes, as they proclaim “praise, honor and glory to me”, but the forgiven Child of God counts their blessings as they proclaim "praise, honor and glory to God through their Lord & Savior Jesus Christ". Psalm 95:1 “Oh come, let us sing to the LORD! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation.”
Romans 5:1-4 “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Count your blessings.
In Christ, Brian
1 comment:
Very wonderful reminder Brian! You are right, we too caught up sometimes to remember just to be thankful and to enjoy all that God has created and given us dominion over. Enjoying all that He has created glorifies Him, for we praise him, exalt him, and thank him for his handiwork which stems from his character and nature.
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