Happy New Years!
As you enter this coming year, do you feel blessed? Do you feel everything is going great so therefore you are blessed? Are you having a rough time as this year and therefore hope that you will be blessed so your rough time will end because you are blessed? Have you ever thought that when you were going through a rough time that you are currently being blessed? Let me share with you about what I have learned about being blessed.
I would like to take a look at a person who is in the Bible who is blessed, but the circumstances according to the world would indicate that this person was having a rough time. I am talking about Mary. Luke 1:28-30 says, “And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.’” (ESV) So we have a young woman, probably no more than seventeen years old, who was engaged to a man. She is now being told that the Holy Spirit is going to conceive a child in her womb. That really sounds like a blessing because the Son of God is being conceived in her womb. However, I want to look at what the world she lived in thought of what has just happened. She is pregnant out of wedlock, a huge scandal in her time. She would be considered to be unfaithful to her fiancée, she was a woman that slept around, her fiancée would be in his right to end the engagement, and would an outcast. I do not know about you but that sounds like a rough time to me.
Mary at this time proclaims in Luke 1:46-55 that she is herself is blessed. She realized that she was being blessed because of it is God who has a plan and she is a big part of that plan. My pastor Troy Dobbs of Grace Church Eden Prairie gave a great message about Mary’s blessing.
I have also found that being blessed does not mean that everything is great. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that certain people are blessed. These are the people who are blessed the poor in spirit, the mourners, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted, the reviled, and those who are lied about. I do not know about you but I am not really excited about being some of those things. Troy also wrote a book about the beatitudes that I would recommend, “The Blessed Life; That know Body Really Wants”
In the long run I have found that I blessed when good things are happening because of God’s blessing. James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”(ESV) It is also clear to me that I am being blessed when I am going through a rough time because James 1:2-4 says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (ESV) Even though at the time of my greatest struggle so far I did not believe that I was being blessed, I now know that I was truly blessed because God was always with me. You to can have God with you all of the time. Find out how.
I pray you will join me being blessed no matter what is happening I your life. Trust God that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to restore our relationship with Him and bless you. Finally, know that God has something new every morning for us. It is these things that give us hope. Remember from past blogs that it is by knowing God that we have hope. The relationship with God through Jesus brings us hope in the present and the future. I would also encourage you to seek Jesus for He is the only opportunity there is to have eternal life. This is to me the greatest source of hope. In doing so, I believe we will have hope and joy during our everyday lives. Understanding that Jesus Christ allows us to access eternal life, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3 (ESV) This will allow us to have hope. At the same time understanding you will live eternally knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ and this will bring you the greatest hope. Because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross satisfied the penalty for sins. His payment satisfies all my sins from the past, the present and in the future. My penalty and yours was satisfied on the cross by the death of Jesus, God’s greatest act of love and wrath, who became sin for me and you. It was also God’s greatest act of faithfulness because “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (ESV) Because holiness shows us, we need to believe in Jesus. I hope that you join me in helping others to choose Jesus.
If you have not read my previous blogs, you can find them here.
You can watch book trailer about my book.
You can find my book, Hope Amid Hopelessness: Our Abba Father Provides a Way Through Mental Illness here.
eBook or Audiobook versions can be found at Westbow Press or Christianbook.com at Amazon or Google.
