Wanna Be Blessed?

Don't we all want to be blessed? I have a few thoughts on the subject I wanted to post. These are just thoughts off the top of my head, based on my experience combined with my understanding of Scripture. I haven't done any special research.

First I should define what I mean by blessed. By blessed, first and foremost I mean being in a state of peace with God and as much as depends on you, with other people and your circumstances. Secondarily, I mean having "better" circumstances. I think we often have a different definition of "blessed" than God's. Guess whose definition is wrong? To a large extent, God defines for each of us individually what it means to be blessed. I think there are some blessings he wants for all of us to experience, such as eternal life with Him in heaven, peace with Him and others on Earth, and joy, to name a few.

It also appears that God's definition of "blessed" can differ among individuals. This prompts the humanly unanswerable theological question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" I'm going to "cop out" and admit up front that I do not have the answer to that. I know people, myself included, that have been victims of what I will call external forces, whether it involves other people or natural events beyond their control.

Sometimes I have a problem with the "victim" theory, though. Too often people would rather claim to be a victim rather than admit their own faults and take personal responsibility. We must accept that God sometimes allows bad things to happen in our lives, regardless of our choices. I still assert, though, that God, even in these situations, is willing and able to give us the grace and peace we need.

That leads me back to the question, "How can a person be blessed?" The primary barrier to blessings is not God! He is the source of all blessings. Then what is the main barrier? I contend that we are our own greatest barriers to being blessed. How? Simply put, when we submit and surrender to God and follow His leadership in our lives, we will maximize our blessings. When we choose to go our own way, we will minimize our blessings. It is important at this point to remember my definition of "blessed".

There have been people who followed the Lord into hostile territory, only to be executed, tortured, crucified, and mistreated in more ways than we want to think about. Who is to say, though, that they were not blessed? I have read and heard stories of people who were martyred for their faith in Jesus Christ, who continued to praise the Lord and expressed amazing peace
and contentment while being killed. How can that be? To me, it's a deep, abiding faith in Christ and being completely surrendered to Him and full of the Holy Spirit.

Paul mentioned in Philippians 1:21, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (King James Version) Matthew Henry's Commentary on this verse states, "Death is a great loss to a carnal, worldly man, for he loses all his earthly comforts and all his hopes; but to a true believer it is gain, for it is the end of all his weakness and misery. It delivers him from all the evils of life, and brings him to possess the chief good. The apostle's difficulty was not between living in this world and living in heaven; between these two there is no comparison; but between serving Christ in this world and enjoying him in another. Not between two evil things, but between two good things; living to Christ and being with him. See the power of faith and of Divine grace; it can make us willing to die. In this world we are compassed with sin; but when with Christ, we shall escape sin and temptation, sorrow and death, for ever. But those who have most reason to desire to depart, should be willing to remain in the world as long as God has any work for them to do. And the more unexpected mercies are before they come, the more of God will be seen in them."

To me, it all gets back to our choices. Our first and most important choice is whether to accept Christ as savior. Once we have decided that, we have to decide to let Him be the Lord, in control, of our lives. Then we have to fight the battles every day against our selfish desires, bad influences, and risky behavior. This extends in to so many areas of our lives. This is the hard part for many of us, if we are honest with ourselves. We are like sheep. Sheep are not known for their intelligence. They tend to wander off. Isn't that just like us? The battle gets easier when we see that our moment by moment choices have a direct relationship to how much we are blessed in the long run. It gets even easier still when we realize that even if we cannot see the result, God will eventually honor our good choices. We need to continually ask Him to help us follow as we should. We should accept his chastening as a blessing. Even if it doesn't feel good at the time, remember that if you have accepted Christ, He will do great things in your life if you let Him!

I pray that you are blessed today and eternally!