Genesis
12:4-5 “So Abram went, as
the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five
years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife,
and Lot his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered,
and the people that they had acquired in Haran, and they set out to go to the
land of Canaan.”
Kyle
continues his message stating that every blessing by God Almighty has a cost.
The reality is that every calling by God has a burden alongside it. It is easy
sometimes to look at a person in a place of influence and significance, then
desire their blessing. But, if you know what it took to get a person to the
place where they are, you would look at it and say “No thanks, I’m good where I’m
at right now.” What we frequently don’t see is the pain that people have
endured in order to get to that position in their life. Understand the costs
and the rewards involved. When we have “partial obedience”, God is not going to
remove His hand of favor from our lives, but we will certainly price the price,
in different ways, throughout our lives. Satan offered Jesus a shortcut, but
the Lord understood that the enemy can never back up his false promises offered
with the intent to deceive. The devil wants us to believe that we can live out
our calling without there ever being any cost to us. The truth is that every
calling has a cost.
Matthew
4:1-3 “Then Jesus was led
up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when
He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now
when the tempter came to Him.”
The
price tag of God’s blessing for every Believer includes three things: (1) Trading
our comfort for God’s calling. The hardest part in any journey is that point
when you are just a little bit too far to turn back, but you are still a really
long way from where you need to get to. Not everyone is called to an Abrahamic “leave
everything behind” kind of calling, but there are times when God calls us to
leave “some” things behind. The point is not “Go do something and hope that God
blesses it.” The point is that God already has blessing in store for you and I right
where we are today, but it costs us something to get there. Walking in God’s
blessing means, every day, a little part of our comfort mechanism and
structures have to die. Jesus said in Mark 8:34-35, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their
cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose
it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.” God’s
promises in return exceedingly, above and beyond all that we could ask for or
imagine, but in exchange we have surrender everything that we can imagine.
John 16:33 “I
have said these things to you, that in me you
may have peace. In
the world you will have tribulation.
But take
heart; I
have overcome the world.”
(2) In faith, sacrificial obedience of time, talents and treasures for the things of the Lord. Sometimes, God will ask us to make offerings for things that are not yet reality. Jesus explains further in Matthew 16:26-27 asking, “What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.” Sometimes, God will ask us to make offerings for things that are not yet reality. Sacrificial obedience is required of every Believer. (3) Patient faith in a future that God has already secured. We have to decide to start the journey to the land that God has already acquired for us in advance. We must have patient faith in what God has promised and obtained for our future, even though it does not look anything like our current reality.
Let conclude Pastor Kyle's message on "being blessed and being a blessing" on the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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