Monday, November 8, 2004

Blessed Beyond All Recognition

Can you stand to be blessed? I mean blessed BIG? How about blessed beyond all recognition?


“Wait a minute,” someone is saying, “I’m not good enough for that.”

Well, you’re right. You’re not good enough — if you are trusting in yourself and what you can do. But you see, blessing is not about you. It’s about God — always has been, always will be — and God has a heart to give. I call it the algebra of love: “God is love. Love gives and serves.”
For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
The LORD will give grace and glory;
No good thing will He withhold
From those who walk uprightly. (Psalm 84:11)
Hmmm — “walk uprightly.” Isn’t that about us and what we have to do? No, it’s still about God. It can’t be about us because we don’t have that kind of righteousness of ourselves—that got lost in the Garden of Eden. But when Adam fell, God immediately plotted a solution, and it came to fulfillment nearly two thousand years ago on a Cross outside Jerusalem.

You see, the Bible says that God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). In other words, Jesus took our sin on Himself, carried it to the Cross, and through Him we are made righteous, counted as being in right relationship with God. We receive this through faith in the Lord Jesus.

The upshot is that all those who are walking in Jesus are walking uprightly — walking in His righteousness. And that perfectly fulfills God’s requirement for blessing. Therefore, no good thing will He withhold from those who believe Jesus.

Yeah, but, blessed beyond all recognition? Where does that come from? Well, it comes from Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to His power that works in us.”

Notice again, that it is all about God. It is according to His power that works in us. God is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask, superabundantly more than we can even think or imagine.

Imagine being so changed by the love of God, His power at work in you, and all His promises fulfilled in your life that friends and family have to stare hard, because they don’t even recognize you. They have to ask who you are and what happened to you, so drawn to the life of Christ and the fire of His passion burning inside you that they have to know how to have it themselves.

Now that’s blessed! Blessed beyond all recognition. And it’s all there for you in Jesus.

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