POSITIONING YOURSELF FOR THE BLESSING OF GOD

I want to speak about God’s blessing. The moment you give your life to Christ your perception about God’s blessing must change. There’s got to be a change in your psyche and mentality about blessing. The consciousness that you don’t have or what you have is insufficient is called “Shortage Mentality”. You’ve got to have a balanced mentality about this.

From the beginning, we were positioned for God’s blessing. 1Pet. 3:9 Not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing: but contrariwise blessing; knowing that ye are thereunto called, that ye should inherit a blessing. It is important that you’re properly positioned for His blessing. As a matter of fact, man was blessed from the beginning, but he lost it through sin. What he was blessed with was cursed when he was banished out of the Garden of Eden. Until you come to Jesus, all the positions and possessions you have is cursed. It is Jesus that lifts up this curse from the blessing. Every blessing outside Jesus carries sorrow. Only Jesus’ blessing is sorrow free.

Gen. 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

Ps. 129:8 Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.

Pro. 10:22 The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.

Blessing is God’s empowerment in action. It is an empowerment in a man’s spirit which translates in the physical. I want you to know that you are thoroughly blessed by the God that made the heaven and the earth. Blessing is not really about the physical possession but the content within. Let’s consider the account of Abraham.

Gen. 12:1-4  Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abram departed, as the LORD had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.

Isa 51:2 Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him.

According to the account in Genesis, this is the first encounter of Abraham with God. God called him and even referred us to his account as a reflection of true blessing. Until this encounter, Abraham was just a man like any other but was blessed increased afterwards.

I want to address the following questions people usually ask about blessing:

1. Is it the will of God to prosper me more than this level? The answer is a resounding yes. 3 John 2
2. Can God prosper me? Yes! Is. 60:15
3. Am I ready to receive the blessing? To be ready is to be positioned like Abraham. Grace found Abraham but he needed faith to actualize the blessing. Besides grace, you need faith to actualize God’s blessing.

There are some necessary things you need to do to possess and enjoy God’s blessing:

Jam. 2:20-22 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

HOW TO POSITION YOURSELF FOR GOD’S BLESSINGS

1. You must be at the right place at the right time. You need to change you location to change your position. The people you surround yourself with are important to your faith. Association determines your faith. You will need to leave some of your associates, friends and relatives. You need to change your position to change your condition – Pro. 27:8. You need to change a number of environments: mental, psychological, physical, spiritual, et al.
2. You must live a life of obedience – Gen. 12:4, 13:14-16, 15:18. When a man acts in obedience to God’s word there is a blessing for it – Gen. 21:12-20, 22:1-2 and 16-18,. For a blessing to go into operation, you must live a live obedience.

Source: http://thestonechurchng.org/positioning-yourself-for-the-blessing-of-god/

BLESSING FROM ABOVE

Open Heavens 2016 Devotional August 1, 2016 BLESSINGS FROM ABOVE Get Open Heavens 2016 Today. Visit http://www.iopenheavens.com.

Why should I want to serve God?

The fact that we should serve God is obvious in Scripture (see Luke 4:8). Why we should want to serve God is a more difficult question. Every Christian asked might have a different reason for serving God; different people are motivated by different things. However, the Bible does make clear that, when a person is in a real relationship with God, he will serve God. We should want to serve God because we know Him; an inherent part of knowing Him is a desire to serve Him.

It’s always been God’s intention to make us like His Son, Jesus (Romans 8:29). When we look at Jesus’ life, there’s no denying that He was a servant. Jesus’ entire life was centered on serving God—by teaching, healing, and proclaiming the Kingdom (Matthew 4:23). He came not “to be served but to serve” (Matthew 20:28). Then, on the night of His arrest, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, leaving them with a final teaching to serve one another: “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (see John 13:12–17). So, if Jesus is all about serving, and God wants to make us like Him, then it’s pretty obvious that we should be all about serving as well.

Genuine service cannot be separated from love. We can go through the motions of serving God, but if our hearts are not in it we’re missing the point. First Corinthians 13 makes it clear that, unless our service is rooted in love, it’s meaningless. Serving God out of a sense of obligation or duty, apart from love for God, is not what He desires. Rather, serving God should be our natural, love-filled response to Him who loved us first (see 1 John 4:9–11).

The apostle Paul is a great example of how having a relationship with God through Christ results in a life of service. Prior to his conversion, Paul persecuted and killed believers, thinking he was serving God. But after he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, he immediately devoted the rest of his life to truly serving God by spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ (see Acts 9:20). Paul describes this transformation in 1 Timothy 1:12–14: “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” Once Paul became aware of the love and grace that God had given him, his response was to serve God.

The Bible offers several motivations for our service. We want to serve God because “we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken” (Hebrews 12:28), because our service supplies “the needs of the Lord’s people” (2 Corinthians 9:12), because our service proves our faith and causes others to praise God (2 Corinthians 9:13), and because God sees and rewards our labor of love (Hebrews 6:10). Each of these is a good reason to serve God.

We can give away only what we’ve first received. The reason we can love and serve God is that He first loved and served us through Jesus Christ. The more we are aware of and experience God’s love in our own lives, the more prone we are to respond in love by serving Him. If you want to want to serve God, the key is to get to know Him! Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal more of God to you (John 16:13). When we truly know God, who is love (1 John 4:8), our natural response is a desire to love and serve Him in return.

http://www.gotquestions.org

Serving God is rewading

Exodus 23:25-26 makes us to understand that" and ye shall serve the Lord your God and He shall bless thy bread and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. There shall nothing cast their young nor be barren in thy land; the number of your days I will fulfill" Serving God is engaging in a business that thrives irrespective of the economy. Jesus, at age twelve asked them. "Don't you know that I must be about my father's business?" "And ye shall serve ...." That's a commandment . He said "concerning the works of my hand , command ye me . ..." You can serve God to the point that you place Him under commandment.

This is rewarding

Rewards of Spiritual Stewardship

1. Divine Health: There are difference between healing, health and wholeness. Healing as the word implies is the state of recovery or gradual health restoration. Health talks about no sickness at all. It is an unhealthy person that requires healing or a physician. He says ' I will take away sickness from the midst of thee ....." That is talking about health. When sickness is taken away, what is left is health. Wholeness is when all that pertains to your life and well-being is not tampered with. Your body, your mental capacity, your spirit and soul are intact. That is God's will for you as a servant. Proverbs 13:17.

2. Divine Protection: You can not pay for divine protection. Job1:8-10. Only servants of God are guaranteed genuine protection like the one Job enjoyed. As a servant of God, arrows that fly by day will not touch you. Other businesses may crash but it will not reach you by the reason of your service to God.

3. Eternal Life: Galatians 6:8 " for he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting" This kind of life is immune to sicknesses and diseases cannot survive it. That is the kind of life that was flowing through JESUS. When you serve God your reward will be life eternal and redemption. Matthew 8:17, Colossians 3:24.

When we serve God, our blessings will be numerous, abundant

Do you know people who like to carry around old baggage everywhere they go? They can't let go of anything. It is as though they just can't let go of the past. They deprive themselves of freedom because they can't forget what someone did to them 10 years ago.

You can't get the most out of today if you are continually rehashing the hurts and disappointments of yesterday. When someone has hurt you, ruined your character in some way or said something to offend you, it is not easy to let go of it.

Our natural tendency is to hang on to it. No one said it is easy, but opening up your heart and letting go of things of the past is the most exhilarating and life-altering things we can do.

Our Lord taught by saying, "Judge not, and you shall not be judged." We have no right to judge others even in the smallest matters. We don't have that right because God didn't give us that right.

James said, "Speak not evil of one another, brethren. He that speaks evil of his brother and judges him, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law. If you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge."

He goes on to say, "There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and destroy: who are you that judge another" (James 4:11-12).

I don't see how it could be any plainer than this. As we don't have the right the judge others, by the same token, others don't have the right to judge us. Some people love to point out other people's faults and short-comings.

We don't have to worry about what others say about us because what they think of us doesn't matter. What matters most in life is the way we live for the Lord Jesus Christ and that do the things that are pleasing to Him. We should treat other people kindly and with respect as the Lord would have us.

Jesus continued in Luke 6:37 by saying, " Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned: forgive, and you shall be forgiven." It's a guarantee! It is a fact! We can count on it. We can stand firmly on this promise and know most assuredly that it is true.

We should be forgivers of those who have wronged us because He has forgiven us.

The greatest way that we can show Christian charity is by letting go of the bitterness and resentment we may harbor in our hearts toward those who have used and taken advantage of us.

In the next verse, He said, "Give, and it shall be given." This is not a maybe. This is not a hope-so kind of thing where you have to believe it is true, but we can know with absolute certainty, beyond the shadow of any doubt that this is true.

It's amazing how things can come back to you. When we do a good deed for someone or say a kind word, it will always come back to us in some way. There are those times when we don't feel like giving times when you feel that it's just not worth it times when you feel like you give and give till you can't do it any more. But what we have to remember is that we are doing it unto the Lord.

When we are in favor with God and doing our best to serve Him, He will bless us in ways which we can't imagine. When we are walking in the ways of God, we should expect the manifestations of God to be on our lives.

Many people don't experience the abundance of God's blessings on their life because they don't expect them. If we are seeking God's goodness and favor to be on our lives, they will surely come because this is the kind of God we serve.

We serve a God of wealth and of plenty. He is not in short supply. The Psalmist David says that "The earth is the Lord's and the fullest thereof; the world and they that dwell therein" (Ps. 24:1). In another place in Psalms it says that God owns "the cattle on a thousand hills."

There are those who are making the mistake of assuming that just because they have something that they own it. This is not entirely true.

Just because you paid for it and have possession of it doesn't mean that you own it. You might have the deed to your house, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you own it.

The money and possessions that we have down here in this life are just on loan to us by God. The scriptures say that we brought nothing into this world and we surely will take nothing out.

The things that are most important are the things you can't buy. You can't buy another person's love. You can't buy a rainbow or a tree, the air we breathe, the health we enjoy or the relaxing sounds of the waves on the seashore.

All these blessings are ours no matter who we are or where we live. It does not matter if we are rich or poor or the color of our skin or what nationality we may be. All blessings we enjoy each day come from God, and all He asks is that we enjoy them and to give Him praise.

While all these blessings of God are good, the greatest of them all is His love. We are told from His Word that He loved the world so much that He gave His only Son. Why did He do this? He did it that we may have everlasting life.

By asking Him to forgive us our sins and to come into our lives as our Savior and Lord, we get God's greatest gift.

By Billy Edwards

The Four Laws of God’s Blessing

“I will bless you … and you will be a blessing.” (Genesis 12:2 NIV)

1. Our blessings should flow to others.

The Bible teaches us that we are blessed not just so that we can feel good, not just so we can be happy and comfortable, but so that we will bless others. God told Abraham in Genesis 12:2, “I will bless you ... and you will be a blessing” (NIV). This is the first law of blessing: It must flow outwardly.

How do you bless others? By serving a need, whether it is physical or emotional support, financial help, or practical advice. "Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand" (Philippians 1:4 MSG).

2. When we bless others, God takes care of our needs.

God promises that if we will concentrate on blessing others, he’ll take care of our needs. There’s almost nothing that God won’t do for the person who really wants to help other people. In fact, God guarantees this blessing. In Luke 18, Jesus says, “I guarantee this. Anyone who gives up anything for the kingdom of God will certainly receive many times more in this life and will receive eternal life in the next world to come.”

When you care about helping other people, God assumes responsibility for your problems. And that’s a real blessing, for he’s much better at handling your difficulties than you are.

3. Our blessings to others will come back on us.

The more you bless other people and the more you help others, the more God blesses your life. Luke 6:38 tells us, “Give away your life; you’ll find life given back, but not merely given back — given back with bonus and blessing” (MSG). You cannot out-give God. The more you try to bless other people in the world around you, the more God says, “I’m going to pour blessings out on you. We’ll play a little game here. Let’s see who will win. Let’s see who can give the most. The more you bless others, the more I’m going to bless you in return.”

4. The more we’re blessed by God, the more he expects us to help others.

Jesus said it this way in Luke 12: “Much is required from the person to whom much is given; much more is required from the person to whom much more is given” (GNT). We are blessed to be a blessing.

Talk About It

- Based on the blessings of your life, what would you say God expects from you?

- What are the needs around you for which you can use your gifts to be a blessing?

Rick Warren is the founding pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., one of America's largest and most influential churches. Rick is author of the New York Times bestseller "The Purpose Driven Life." His book, "The Purpose Driven Church," was named one of the 100 Christian books that changed the 20th century. He is also the founder of Pastors.com, a global Internet community for pastors.