Fresh Mannaby Pastor Tim BurtSomething that is crystal clear in the context of God's will for your life is that He wants you to follow His ways so that you will be blessed and prosper in all you put your hand to. This won't happen overnight. It has everything to do with character development and obedience to God's word, which can take a great deal of time depending on how intentionally you learn to live and walk out life according to God's will. But God's people being blessed has always been and always will be His plan, His will, and His desire for His people. It's critical to your faith and trust in God to know that and be immovable from it!In this two-part devotional, read the scriptures at the end of today's post while paying attention to what God is saying. Let God speak to your heart, and the Holy Spirit guide you and reveal His heart of love for your life. The Word of God is crystal clear that it is God's will and desire for you to be blessed. That truth runs throughout the context of the entire Bible.God had put Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden because of their disobedience. Their lives were about to turn from bliss and provision to a difficult life of toil and misery. People are funny creatures. They want to figure things out for themselves, including how to live independently. Adam and Eve were proof of the disaster of figuring things out rather than obeying God! That spirit of figuring things out for themselves literally continued for the next 2600+ years until God finally sent Moses to rescue His people—that is, with the exception of Abraham and his heritage. Abraham hungered for God in ways that no other man did. Abraham had faith in the God of his earliest ancestors. And Abraham wanted to live for God but was struggling to know how. God encountered Him. Because of Abraham's love and faith in God, God taught him and also established a covenant of promise with him that would change the world.God also warned Abraham that after he died, his people would stray and end up in captivity for 400 years (under pharaohs). About 500 years after Abraham's death, God sent them Moses. Moses led them from Egypt into the desert. The people were instructed to have faith and obey and follow God's directions. The truth was, they were lousy and sinful at it. They were rebellious, seemingly faithless, unthankful, and slow to trust in Moses' leadership despite the continuous miracles and the fire by night and cloud by day leading them. This first group of his people were not allowed to enter into the promised land because they had no true heart faith, and love for God— that is, with the exception of Joshua and Caleb. Most showed little to no faith and did not allow God to instruct them and transform their hearts. So, they did not get the good promises God desired for them.Why am I telling you all this? I want you to see the devastation that happens in life to those who reject God, reject faith, and would rather lead themselves in how to live than follow God and let Him lead them. All God wanted from the start was to lead them, teach them His ways, and prosper and bless them. Instead, they lived a continuous cycle of failure. God gave people thousands of years to seek Him and change.Abraham was the exception, being one who loved and sought God. And so God reached out to Him. Abraham first, and then Moses. It took all that time for a few to seek God and have faith, praying that God would help them. Up until this time, they did not have instruction on how to live for God. (My personal thought is that God patiently gave them all this time, letting them establish a historical time period that would prove they rejected Him on so many levels and couldn't get it right on their own.)It was then that God began to give instructions to His people through Moses on how to live for God and be blessed by God for doing so. In closing today, I want you to read these verses, which are instructions given to His people through Moses. Beyond the Ten Commandments, these were literally God's first detailed instructions for living that would result in their blessing or consequence if they did not obey His words. God was now teaching His people how to live on earth! No other people had such instructions from God. Ask yourself, "What does God want?" and "What does God promise?" I believe you will see that God desires obedience, which leads to blessing. And my point today is it's always been God's desire to bless us. He simply wants us to live for Him and His ways because His ways bless everyone! And this is not about "The Law." This is about God-loving hearts, thankful to God, who want to truly live for Him. And His desire is that it results in His blessing for us. He wants to bless you! We'll talk more about that next time. In the meantime, meditate on these scriptures.
Deuteronomy 28:1-9 (NLT) “If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all His commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do."
3 John 1:2 (NKJV) "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.
More in Part Two of this devotional... Be blessed!
In His love,Pastor Tim Burt
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