What do you do when you receive blessings from God? There are three elements of a healthy response. Jesse looks to scripture to show us the traps that can happen when we are blessed and what we are supposed to do with our blessings.
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Show Notes:
This episode covers common traps related to blessings, in terms of what not to do with your response. Then three elements of a healthy response. Also, a twist in terms of our perspective.
From Adam and Eve, we learn when God blesses you don’t start calling the shots or elevate yourself above God. From king Nebuchadnezzar, the king, we learned not to boast foolishly, or try to steal the credit. From Zacchaeus, we learn when God blesses you, don’t try to steal other peoples, blessings, or hoard blessings. From the nation of Israel, we learn when God feeds you and you are satisfied. Don’t let it lead to pride, and then forget God. Hosea 13:4
Three elements in our response: Number one is glory. Blessings, glorify God and when we receive a blessing, it’s important to give God praise and thanks. Psalm 115 verse one, Psalm 67, James 1:17 the second element is Grace because God treats us better than we deserve, and the best is yet to come the third element is gratitude. It’s God’s will that we give thanks to God in all circumstances. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Like the prayer of Jabez, we often ask God to bless us. There’s nothing wrong with that. But the purpose of the blessing is then to be able to bless other people. Also, the lords prayer teaches us our own blessings, but to pray that God would bless all of us and lift up other people in prayer.
There’s an invitation at the end for people to follow Jesus.
Special thanks to World Concern for sponsoring The Bonfire Podcast.
Transcription:
Welcome to The Bonfire. God is love. God is light. God is a consuming fire, and this podcast is all about God’s presence. We’re growing in our faith together, and today is a wrap of season two. We’ve been looking at specific situations and how to navigate those. What God does when we’re in the middle of trouble because he is a refuge, strength and ever-present help in trouble and what we can learn from stories in the Bible, how we learn from each other and how we keep growing in our responses.
Life is about abiding and responding, abiding with Jesus and then responding in the power of the Holy Spirit. There’s going to be fruit when you abide with Jesus. Today in this final situation, we’re going to think about blessings. How do you respond when God blesses you? What are you doing with your blessings? First, we’re going to look at what not to do and what we see in the Bible [inaudible 00:01:09], avoid these situations in terms of responses and then second, what can we do? Three elements that stand out.
Then finally kind of a twist today, and we’re going to shift, make a shift that’s very significant and often overlooked. Let’s think through blessings. Blessings, every single blessing comes from the Lord. When you open up the Bible, what do you see? God is blessing people. It’s beyond what we deserve. His kindness, His provision, His protection. God knows us, loves us and pursues us before we ever realize it. The truth is God blesses us. Even when people rebel against God, He’s still giving them life and breath in their lungs, their heart’s still beating, their mind is still working. They’re still able to have a job. There’s countless blessings from the Lord. What are we going to do with those blessings? Here’s a couple of things we want to avoid starting out.
Adam and Eve, they were in the Garden of Eden. They had fellowship with God. Marriage had just begun. All the potential. God put them in a position where they had influence. God provided for them. They had the beauty of nature around them. It was pristine. All the animals were there. I mean, this was an incredible blessing to step into, and yet what did they do? They started making deals with the devil. The devil showed up, and they watered down the Word, and then with that they took their blessings for granted. They started focusing on what they want, what they don’t have, and they landed in a spot where they’re calling the shots. They chose sin. In the middle of blessings everywhere they chose that we are going to put ourselves above God, His blessings are not enough and probably some pride kicked in with all the goodness of God that God had displayed.
What did they do? They said, “We’re going to go our own way. We’re going to call the shots.” When God blesses you, and he gives you health or finances or a job, when he gives you friends, family, when he gives you a career, don’t try to grab the steering wheel and tell God, “All right, thanks for getting me this far. Now I’m going to call the shots.” That’s a classic. We want to avoid it. Let’s learn from Adam and Eve.
As God blesses us, here’s a second response not to have. Think of Nebuchadnezzar the King. In Daniel 4 he’s looking out over Babylon, and God has given him vision, provision, God has blessed him with teams. Now Babylon is built up. He’s appreciating and admiring this great city and then what does he declare? “Is this not Babylon, the great city that I have made? My empire,” and it’s me, me, me.
Somehow the shift went from God to me, and now he’s taking the credit. When God blesses you, don’t take the credit. Don’t stand up and proclaim your good works and all the things you’ve done well. That’s foolishness. Everything you have is from God. Even the right motivation, even the right knowledge, even the right equipment, it’s all a gift from God. Because of that, there’s no place for us to boast. Nebuchadnezzar had moved God completely out of the picture, and it was all about him. Don’t let your blessings go to your head. Don’t take them for granted. Don’t let your head swell and don’t foolishly boast. Stay humble with God. It’s one of the biggest challenges when God blesses you is to stay humble and to stay grateful.
When you don’t do that, it’s going to lead to some kind of death. Death of more opportunities. It’s going to lead sometimes to physical death in the Bible. Check out Herod, what happened to him. The worms came and ate him. There’s so many instances of death, the death of a great ending, your story, the death of respect, death of relationships. Pride leads to death. Pride goes before a fall. Don’t let the blessings lead to pride. You got to fight and resist that. Be committed to dropping the pride.
Those are two examples in the Bible. Adam and Eve first, then King Nebuchadnezzar. When you think about other examples in scripture, Zacchaeus comes to mind because God blessed him with a job. He’s a tax collector, and what did he do? The blessings turned to greed. It was never enough and then he used other people. He stole other peoples’ blessings. Trust God with contentment. Don’t start stealing other peoples’ blessings. It’s terrible. Zacchaeus steals the blessings. Now he’s alone. Any time you steal from people, use people, take advantage of people, the result is going to be you’re alone. You’re lonely because when you walk all over people, they’re not going to be around. The friendship, the community, we all need God, we all need each other. We all need community. It’s not going to be around if you’re not treating people right.
For some people, the more God blesses them, they treat people worse. They start to look down upon people. They start to think, “I’m over you. I’m better than you.” That classic trap right there, destruction. Ultimately the person who chooses that, they’re going to be the ones in poverty. Zacchaeus has all kinds of money, but his soul’s in poverty, his friendships are in poverty, the quality of life is in poverty. You can have a lot of blessings and still have poverty.
Start with your soul, then your friendships, your family, your relationships. As you serve people, Zacchaeus, it’s a good ending to the story … He’s going to turn from sin, turn to the Savior. God’s going to change his heart. Jesus is going to bring transformation. He’s going to become generous. He’s going to understand that God blesses us to bless other people. He’s going to give to the poor. Things are going to change in his community because he has a change of heart, and that kind of change of heart comes from God’s love and God’s truth. That’s how you handle blessings. We get to see a before and after with Zacchaeus.
If you’re listening today, there might be a before and after. There might be some things going on in your life before you started to listen today and join in today, connect today in this podcast, and by the time we’re finished there’s going to be an after, a different story. Change of trajectory, change your priorities, change your motives. God’s going to do a deep work, and that’s the excitement about getting close to God and His presence. Nothing’s greater than God’s presence, and when you draw near, God starts to move. He renews our minds. He changes our hearts and our goals, and we make shifts. They’re good shifts.
Hosea 13:4, God says, “I fed you and then you became satisfied and it led to pride and then the people forgot God.” That cycle right there, God provides, God is gracious, God is good. God blesses, and the people are satisfied. What do they do with the satisfaction? It leads to pride, and then they forget God. Don’t forget God when God blesses you. If you live in America, you live in a country, there’s a lot of prosperity, a lot of materialism. You might think, “I don’t need God as much because I have a degree. I have education. I have experience. I have a great job. I have a comfortable house. I have a great car. I have a lot of friends. I have technology. I’ve got the latest methods. I’ve got all of this stuff, best practices, principles. It’s all at my fingertips. I’ve read the book. I don’t need God anymore.”
It’s a sad place if you want the blessings but not the blesser. You want God’s hand but not His face. You want the results but not the relationship. Let me say that again. Don’t over focus on the blessings instead of the blesser, God’s hand instead of God’s face and at the same time the results over the relationship. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first the Lord. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, soul and mind, and all this will be added to you. God is going to bless you when you seek Him.
But don’t make the blessings primary. They should always be secondary. When we flip that, it leads to idolatry. Your greatest blessing can become an idol. Some people, they’ve been praying for a house, and then what happens when they get the house? It becomes an idol. Some people pray for a wife, and what happens when they have a wife or a husband or a spouse? That person becomes an idol. Some people pray for a promotion and a career and success in their career. It can be noble, and yet what happens? It leads to the job becoming an idol, and God is forgotten. God is second. God is third. Maybe not completely forgotten like you no longer remember God, but forgotten in the sense that God isn’t where He should be. God’s only place is first. God doesn’t belong at number two. God doesn’t belong at number five. He won’t stay there. It’s idolatry, it’s sin, and God is worthy. These are all examples in the Bible of what not to do with your blessings. Blessings can become a stumbling block. Blessings can become an idol. Don’t let that happen.
What about when blessings come? How do we respond? I want to look at three elements to think through. The first one’s glory. There is glory attached to blessings. Blessings carry glory, and that glory belongs to God. Psalm 115:1, “Not to us, oh Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory because of your love and your faithfulness.” Blessings communicate God’s love and faithfulness. God is still loving and faithful even if you don’t get the blessings you want, but the blessings He brings, they point us to God’s love and God’s faithfulness. Every good gift, every blessing is from our Father above. The Father of lights. James 1, “God blesses us so we can bless other people.” This is true in Genesis 12 for Abraham, it’s true in Psalm 67. In fact, God blesses us so we’ll bless the nations.
God has blessed you so immensely that those blessings are designed to travel to the nations. How does that work? If God’s blessed you financially, you can give to people. It might be sponsoring a child in a place like Cambodia. It could be supporting someone who’s on mission overseas. It could be sending relief when there’s natural disaster. God blesses you financially to bless others around the world. God blesses you with a talent and a gift, and that gift and that talent will travel across the world. That’s never been more true through YouTube, social media, online content. Sharing the content you’ve discovered and then passing along to other people. What else? God blesses you maybe with a home. You can open it up and invite someone who’s from a different country. You’re blessing the nations. There are so many people in your city that have traveled from other countries, that are there as students or working, new to the area. You bless them when you open up your home.
Or it could be give someone a ride. There are so many ways to bless people. When you pray, if you have a relationship with Jesus and you’re praying throughout the week, you can start to pray for other countries. You can start to pray for people and other nations. It’s exciting. All these are examples that God blesses you to bless other people, and that gives him glory. When you’re blessing others, that brings God the most glory. God deserves all the glory. It’s only fitting. If every blessing comes from him, all the glory belongs to him.
Name one blessing in your life that didn’t come from God. Name one. It’s impossible because every single blessing, 100% of blessings. Again, some people think, “Well, I worked hard this paycheck. It was like partly God and partly me.” Well, actually it’s fully God, and God did work in you and through you. You were involved, but God is always the source. If you have a job, God gave it to you. If you have strength, God gave it to you. If your mind is working correctly, God gave it to you. A solution, God gave it to you. A team of people around, God’s provided that for you. Your motivation, your talents, your abilities, it’s all from God. Everything is from God.
That’s a paradigm shift. We can’t take the credit. Think of how much boasting there is in our culture. Think of how foolish it is. Every time someone does something well, they want to do this, post on social media, point to their name. I mean, that’s in sports. Who’s giving God the glory? To do it publicly takes courage. That starts with baptism. When you put your trust in Jesus and He has died for your sins and He is risen, when you put your trust in Him, now you’re born again, you’re in God’s family forever. Your sins are forgiven. You have peace with God. From that the next step is to get baptized. Baptism doesn’t save you, but it’s an expression, a public expression, giving glory to God for what He’s already done. It’s an outward expression of an inward work.
God has already saved you. You’re born again. You’re in His family. Now publicly you get baptized and you let everyone know, “I’m following Jesus. He’s my savior.” Publicly, you give God glory. That sets a rhythm, that sets a pattern, it sets a tone that for the rest of your life you’re going to give God glory. It doesn’t matter if people agree. They might disagree. You can give God thanks and people will say, “Actually that wasn’t God. That was you.” Just simply disagree. They might criticize you, but give God the glory.
There were 10 that were healed by Jesus, and they were lepers. One of them that had the leprosy came back and thanked God. One out of 10. Would you agree that’s pretty accurate these days? One out of 10 probably thank God publicly, one out of 10 turn around to God and thank Him for all the blessings. I am often neglecting the thanksgiving I should give to God, and I take blessings for granted. What percentage of the blessings in my life do I thank God for? Like on a weekly basis? Maybe 10% of the blessings. God gives us so much more than we thank Him for, and I’m not being legalistic. I’m just saying God deserves it. God’s worthy. He gets the glory and it’s all His grace. Grace is an undeserved gift. Salvation comes through grace. It’s by faith, grace and this gift from Jesus to receive. Our whole lives every day is a story of God’s grace.
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When you think about God’s blessing, it’s all His grace. When you receive His grace, it’s important to acknowledge it, thank Him for that, and also it’s His grace at the best is yet to come. There’s just more and more grace coming. His grace is greater than our sin. His grace is greater than this earth we live in because there’s going to be new heaven and new earth. His grace is greater than the bodies we have because we’re going to receive new perfected bodies. His grace is greater, His love is perfect and He’s worthy. His grace abounds. His power is made perfect in our weakness.
When it comes to His grace … This week I flew from Seattle to New York City because the Tamron Hall Show reached out, and it was in the afternoon. They said, “Would you like to come in the morning?” So I had a red-eye flight. There were two flights actually, and I showed up early in the morning. See, sometimes people on TV, it just looks like they have it all together or social media. Everything’s so smooth, but here’s the reality.
I got on that plane with back pain. My back had flared up that day and then the two flights, no sleep, I didn’t bring much food with me. I made it to ABC. I didn’t have sleep, I didn’t have a shower. I literally pulled out a washcloth and then went into the employees’ little sink area and I was washing my face just to try to wake up, freshen up. After that then I put on this suit that I found on a clearance rack a couple months ago, and I just had a suit just in case. I figured this is a time to wear it. East Coast is a little more formal than the West Coast. Putting on that suit just before the show, I’m looking at my pants thinking they’re way too long, and at the same time I had a collar that kept falling down. It was like droopy. I don’t know if from traveling or something, but it wouldn’t stay straight, and the show’s about to start.
Well, fortunately she has a team, a great team, and someone came in and taped the pants, got just the right length, and then in back kind of pinched it together and held it there. Again, what did that do? It kind of gave the pants the right shape, the right length. All the tape was holding it up. You have no idea. Then on my shirt, replaced the holders in the collar with strong ones, and then again taped the shirt up. It was like the outfit was propped up. It actually looked all right and all that happened. You wouldn’t know it, but again, God’s provision. It’s His grace. I knew when I showed up and just felt, I just felt like junk. Some days, some mornings I feel like junk. After an all-nighter, maybe when I was in college I didn’t feel like junk, but I’ll tell you right now after an all-nighter, that’s how I felt. Then I’d never met Tamron before. I didn’t know what questions were going to be asked. Just jumping into that live interview with people all around I was fully reliant on God.
Here’s the key. We rely on God. We know we don’t have what it takes. We know we can’t pull it off, but God provides. God gives us strength, words, opportunities, love in our hearts. God does it. It’s all His grace. God’s going to make us aware over and over again. For eternity we’re going to know it’s His grace and every single day we know it’s His grace. If we’re alive today, it’s His grace. If we have blessings, it’s His grace and that leads to gratitude. See, when God blesses you, first there’s glory. God deserves it all. There’s grace because that’s the real story. Not what things look like on the outside, but the real story. God knows it. The real story is His grace and then it leads to gratitude.
Gratitude inspires. Gratitude’s contagious. When you start to give thanks, other people are going to catch that. The culture’s going to change. You start to thank God and other people start to realize, “I want to thank God.” That honors God. We enter His courts with thanksgiving, His gates with praise. As we come with thanksgiving to God, it’s only fitting because He’s the one who’s provided. When you bring gratitude in thanksgiving, this is what it does. It helps you focus on what you do have instead of over-focusing on what you don’t have. Gratitude is good for your body physically. It’s good for your mental health. It’s good for your soul. Gratitude is something we can choose every day, an intentional gratitude, a gritty gratitude, giving thanks when we don’t feel like giving thanks. It protects you from complaining. It lessens worry, anxiety. It protects you from greed, from envy.
When you have gratitude, you start to say out loud, “God, thank you for this. Thank you for that.” You can take five minutes and start to thank God during the day in maybe the morning to set the tone or the end of the day when you think back over the day, don’t skip over gratitude. God deserves our thanks and not just at church or during thanksgiving or right before a meal. I’m talking about a lifestyle of gratitude. Gratitude inspires other people. It protects us from some common traps.
Gratitude also, it’s a culture of celebration and celebrating is important. If you’re at work or you’re on a team, you’re completing some projects, it’s important to celebrate. If you don’t celebrate, it feels like you’ve never quite done enough. You’ve never quite done it well. It gets exhausting. Teams get deflated because it always feels like, oh, here’s the next thing and the next thing, the next thing. Could we just stop and celebrate and give God thanks? Could we give Him praise? Could we worship? Could we take a praise break right now and celebrate and enjoy the blessings God’s given to us?
Enjoy your blessings. That’s one of the things about it. Let’s say you invest in a house or a home one day, you’re going to enjoy that blessing. If you have good food, enjoy that blessing. If people love you and you like to laugh with your friends, enjoy that blessing. Start to enjoy and savor the blessings but not more than God, and then express it in gratitude. Celebrate what God has done. Celebrate it, thank the people around you who you’re working with, collaboration. It’s important to celebrate.
We live in a culture where there’s often a narrative of hopelessness. There’s a narrative of complaining. Complaining is a choice. I’ve been to nations where there is so much less materially. There’s so much less in terms of prosperity, homes, cars, clothes, all of that, and yet gratitude is often much higher what I experience in those places than what I typically experience in my own country. Gratitude is a choice. Don’t neglect it. Why? It gives God glory. It’ll protect you from some common traps, and then also it’ll create a new culture of celebration.
Here’s a twist, and I want us to end on this twist right here. When it comes to gratitude, a lot of times we think of me. What has God given me? In the Western part of the world individualistic. Me. Well, think of the prayer of Jabez in the Bible. “God bless me.” There’s nothing wrong with that prayer. ‘God, please bless me. Enlarge my territory. God, I pray for your hand to be upon me, and I pray God, that you would protect me from evil and pain.” That’s the prayer of Jabez. It’s a powerful prayer. It’s a good prayer, and yet it’s a lot of me. Asking God to bless you, that’s fine, but just remember, to whom much is given, much will be required.
How can you bless people? How are the blessings in your life flowing right now? What God has given to you? Are you thanking Him? Are you blessing other people intentionally? What about us? What about the shift from me to we? How often do you pray God bless us? The Lord’s Prayer, Our Father, right away the pronoun is we, our, together, us. From that, your name, God, your glory, your kingdom, your power. The focus is on God more than us and more than blessings. The focus is on God. Then what is the prayer? Our daily bread. What we need today. Protect us from the evil one, from temptation. Protect us, and then as God leads us, guides us, it’s us. There’s a sense of community, and sometimes I think we’re more focused on individual blessings than the community overall.
Let that perspective drive us out to love our neighbors, to serve in our community. If your heart is that the people around you are blessed, it’s not just going to be that you tried to get to the top of the mountain, but the people around you as well. How can everyone ascend to the top of the mountain? That’s a biblical picture from The Lord’s Prayer. Let’s not let them shift. They start to shift and move and they become focused on blessings, blessings, me, me, blessings, blessings, me. If that’s your prayer life right now, bless me, bless things, me, me, it’s time to broaden that. “God, first I adore you. I thank you. I praise you. I worship you. I focus on you. I’m grateful for you, God. You have my affection. I love you so much, God.” Start there and then think through what He’s already given to you.
Start to thank Him, God. My clothes, my health today, God, this conversation, this opportunity today, my job today, God, my car today that’s working. Start to thank God for the things that are working. I talked to someone who’s past retirement age and they said, “Yeah, I’ve got health stuff every day, but I’ve learned to thank God. I’ve learned to appreciate what’s still working.” Appreciate what’s still working, and do that. Otherwise, you’ll have one part of your body that’s not working and then that’ll just become consumed with that one thing, and then you go around and your head’s down, you’re hanging your head, and I felt it with back pain this week.
It was easy for that back pain to consume me, try to steal my joy, steal my purpose, distract me on that trip to New York City. There’s all kinds of things. When one thing’s going wrong, there’s always going to be 99 things going wrong. There always will. Now, sometimes we need to grieve. Sometimes we need to stop, mourn, grieve, cry. Absolutely, 100%. In this context of gratitude, I’m not talking about major traumatic events and things we need to really grieve. I’m talking more of our daily rhythms, choices, habits, decisions when it comes to gratitude. Don’t let the 99 problems that are always going to be there every day steal your peace, your joy, steal your kindness, steal your closeness with God. Instead, choose the gratitude. Yes, those things have their place, but I’m going to thank God. God’s will is to thank Him every day in all circumstances.
That’s what the Bible says, “Give thanks in all circumstances. This is God’s will.” Don’t stop the thanksgiving. It shouldn’t stop. That flow shouldn’t stop, that intentionality. It’s habits, it’s decisions, it’s gratitude. When God blesses you, give Him glory, celebrate, be grateful. Not just generally grateful, but give God your gratitude. Thank Him personally for that, and remember, it’s all His grace. We can’t take credit for any of it. It’s His grace. If you’ve never put your trust in Jesus, there’s no greater gift from God. When it comes to gratitude He sent His son, died for your sins and risen. Start the relationship. Maybe you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while and you haven’t made that decision yet. You have sensed God’s presence. He’s been knocking on the door of your heart. Now it’s time to step over the line and say, “Yes, I want to begin this relationship.”
Make that decision today. Decide to follow Jesus as your Lord and Savior. It’s between you and the Lord. You just tell him, “Jesus, you’re my Savior. You died for my sins. I know you’re risen from the grave. You’re going to return and I want to follow you. Thank you for the gift of eternal life.” It’s that simple. From your heart to Him. If you know Jesus, find a church, grow in your faith, start to serve, read the Bible, develop some of these habits like gratitude, prayer, meditation on scripture. God’s going to do amazing things.
If you’re enjoying the podcast, please share it, rate and review. Let’s continue to invite more people in to The Bonfire, this podcast, this community. As we grow together, as we seek God together, we enjoy diving deep into the stories of God’s word and then applying it to our lives. Be doers of God’s word.
This is a wrap for season number two and all the situations. The first season, seven different people in the Bible. The second, seven different situations that are everyday situations for us. In this next season, we’re going to talk about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, often overlooked. What does that mean? We talk about God’s presence. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let’s talk about the Holy Spirit together. Look forward to joining you and being together next season. This is The Bonfire. God is love. God is light. God is a consuming fire, and there’s no greater gift than God’s presence.
