DAY #2: November 23, 2010

How else can I begin to experience the blessed life? 2. UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF BLESSING?
We throw that term “Blessing” around a lot. You sneeze, “God bless you.” Someone asks, “How are you doing?” and some people will say, “I’m blessed.” Oh really? Watch a comedian. He’ll take the Lord’s name in vain 400 times. He’ll drop the F-bomb 35 times. And then to conclude his show, he’ll say, “God bless you.”

What does it mean to be blessed? Whenever I say the words “bless” or “blessing” or “God bless you,” here’s what I think. I think of the intangibles: peace, contentment, tranquility of the soul, love, joy. That’s what I think about. And that’s part of it. That’s part of blessing. Blessing, though, is deeper than that. You might want to jot this definition down.

Blessing means to be on the receiving end of the tangible and intangible favor of God. We understand the intangible part—the peace, the joy, the tranquility of the soul, love and all that. We understand that blessing is kind of about stuff we cannot taste and touch and smell and feel.

But, there’s more. God wants to also bless you in tangible ways—materially, financially. He blesses his people with stuff. Isn’t that something about God? He wants to pour out His intangible and tangible blessing in our life. God wants to bless your life. But to be blessed, we’ve got to be bless-able.

You might be thinking right about now, Pastor, what do you mean – am I blessable? Philippians 4:19 is one of the 5000+ promises in the bible, and in my opinion it is one of the greatest promises in the Bible.

It’s a promise from God to meet your needs. Listen - "And my God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus." God says, "I will meet all your needs.I will bless your life" Pretty awesome huh? You ask then - Then why do people have needs? I see a lot of people who have tremendous needs. I see a lot of Christians who have tremendous needs.

Why aren't they being met? Is God a liar? Is His promise not valid? What's the problem? The answer to the question is that this promise is not for everybody. This promise is not for every Christian. SAY WHAT? With every promise there is a premise. There is a condition that God says, "If you do this, I will do that."

People want to take the v. 19 promise and apply it to their lives while avoiding the premise/condition of verses 14-18. You cannot claim v. 19 unless you're doing what v. 18 talks about. The context is Paul is talking to a group of Philippians saying "Thank you. You have given sacrificially. And because you have given sacrificially, God is going to take care of your needs."

To understand this truth more fully, let’s look at a guy lived a long time ago. His name was Abraham. He came from a family of idol worshippers. Yet Abraham was a guy who God poured out His blessing on. Let’s read about his life. Genesis 12:2-3. God says “I’ll make you into a great nation. I’ll bless you. I’ll make your name great, Abraham. And you’re going to be a blessing. I’ll bless those who bless you. Whoever curses you I’ll curse. And all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Let’s keep going, because Abraham was a man who was truly blessed. In fact, one of his workers said this about him: Genesis 24:35, he said—he’s talking about Abraham here—“The Lord has blessed my master abundantly and he has become wealthy. He has given him sheep and cattle, silver and gold, menservants and maidservants, and camels and donkeys.” Abraham was blessed, if you read about his life, He was blessed occupationally, relationally, and financially. Abraham was a man who knew that everything he had came from God. Why did God bless Abraham?

There are several events in Abraham’s life brought out the blessing of God. I want to talk about one. Abraham was old. God said, “Abraham, you and Sarah are going to have a baby.” He was like, “What?” They became pregnant. They had Isaac, the apple of Abraham’s eye. Those of us who are fathers know about that special relationship we have with our sons. You know what God told Abraham to do?
“Hey Abraham, take the life of your son as a sacrifice to me.”

Now, just put yourself in his sandals for a second. Here’s Abraham and his son Isaac walking up to the mountain for the whole sacrifice thing. His son is probably, I don’t know, 12 or 13 and saying, “Dad, where’s the animal? Dad, where’s the animal? Where is he dad?”

And can’t you imagine the tears and the emotion that Abraham was dealing with? God’s telling him to take the life of his own son. I mean, that just seems weird, crazy. Right before he began to kill his own son, what did God do? God provided a ram, a scapegoat if you will, that Abraham used in place of taking the life of his son. Do you see the giving in Abrahams life? Do you see the sacrifice? This is why God blessed him.

Man, don’t forget it. You’d better download it. Abraham was God-hearted. Abraham was generous with his abilities, and his talents, and his aptitudes, and his money, and his stuff. WHY? Because he knew deep down in his heart that it all came from God. He had blessed to be blessing to others.

Ponder these things today. i love you guys. Stay faithful. Stay the course. ENDURE!