COMMANDED BLESSINGS

Deuteronomy 28:8 NKJV The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

My kitchen has been full of apples, pears, plums, and blackberries which is a great blessing. Some we’ve been kindly given, some we’ve picked ourselves, but I’ve been working away cooking them all and making some lovely jams and chutneys this past week. Hard work, but worth it.😊 

All through scripture it refers to seed time and harvest. The Lord wants us to have a harvest in life but it does require some work! I sometimes hear people say, “Well if the Lord wants to bless me He’ll make it happen.” But we have to do our part in the process!

There are some blessings that are automatic but God also says He blesses the work of our hands and causes everything we turn our hand to, to prosper. It’s a bit like a farmer. God can’t bless his seed to give him a great harvest if he’s lazy and leaves his seed in the barn unplanted! We also need to plant some seed so we give God something to bless!😊

God told Joshua he would prosper and be successful in all he did if he kept God’s word in his thinking and in his mouth all the time and obeyed it. That promise is for us as well.

So this is to encourage us all, no matter how busy we are, to read God’s word and keep it in our hearts and mouths. Believe God will bless all the work of our hands, whether that involves caring for loved ones, going out to work, starting up a business, working in church or planting financial seeds into the kingdom of God. 

Our God has commanded blessings on what we do and He will give us a harvest.😊 Thank You Lord. Amen.

Photo: Willy the Wizard on Unsplash

SPIRIT OF LIFE

2 Timothy 1:7 AMP For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of sound judgment and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].

 

Life can take some unexpected turns and we woke last Friday to what should have been a normal day only to discover that the lens inside Chris’s eye had ‘dropped’ out of place and he could no longer see clearly! There followed a chain of events that led to me having to drive the car which I haven’t had to do for quite some time, spending four hours in Eye Casualty, and being advised Chris shouldn’t drive till he has surgery!

Romans 8:2 NKJV For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The enemy loves to try to unsettle us, to give us the ‘what ifs’, to see the negative side of things, but as I sat in the waiting room I was reading an article about God giving us the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. There is no fear in the law of the Spirit of life because it is faith filled, it trusts God. Fear comes from the law of sin and death which we’ve been delivered from by Jesus, praise God.

So we all have a choice to make; will we live by the law of the Spirit of life, where Jesus has given us all we shall ever need for this life and eternity, or will we listen to the enemy’s lies and fall back into fearing the worst, worrying about the things that ‘might’ happen? 

God never gave us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and self control (a sound mind). A sound mind is one that listens to what God has said, believes it and acts on it. God’s power inside us is more than able to defeat the spirit of fear which tries to press in on us. 

When we dwell on how much God loves us we’ll rest in the security it brings, and that will help us discipline our thoughts to come in line with the word of God which tells us we can do whatever we have to do through Christ who will strengthen us, that He’ll provide all we need, no matter what that need is.😊

We have to act on it, as I now have to drive everywhere we go which is a big challenge for me, and believe for full restoration of Chris’s sight.

So this is just to encourage each one of us, as we enter the new week, to choose to live in the Spirit of life, in the love of God and the power His Spirit gives us.  In Jesus name. Amen.