Friday Fight 165: Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow
Every Friday, when I wake and pray, God places something on my heart to help me fight darkness beginning in our minds. Today is FF165.
Have you ever seen someone who seemingly “has it all” and felt envious because of it? We all have at one point or another. We beg God for one more blessing to make everything ok and curse our neighbor for having more or better than we do. In doing so, we take the good things God has given us, and we turn them into curses because they aren’t enough to satisfy our blessing-addicted souls. In our sinful nature, we have become spiritually obese, never satisfied but constantly overfed. What if it didn’t have to be that way?
Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow:
To better understand how blessings can become curses, we will look at the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. In Matthew 14, Jesus was teaching a huge crowd of people as dinnertime quickly approached. The disciples started to worry about how all these people would be fed, yet Jesus said to them, “You give them something to eat.” Well, the disciples only had five loaves of bread and two fish, certainly not enough to feed the crowd. Jesus then said, “Bring them here to me.” He took the food and gave thanks to the Lord. Suddenly, everyone was having dinner, and there were leftovers. What if instead of constantly complaining about what we don’t have and envying others, we gave what we have to Jesus and trusted Him to make it all work? What if we had faith that what He’s given us is enough instead of asking for more? We must be aware of what happens when we spend too much time leveraging our resources rather than focusing on the God who gave it to us. Blessings and curses begin with the positions of our hearts.
About three years ago, God placed a vision on my heart about having church on the water. It did not make sense at the time, but a handful of us continued to pray. God answered our prayers, and we are having church on the Potomac River this weekend. We have no plan, no worship team, very few chairs, and limited parking, but we have faith that God will provide everything we need, just as He did with the five loaves and two fish. When my husband and I discussed having church here, he hoped God would allow at least one person to be saved. I could have focused on my lack of chairs and small house, but instead, I chose to focus on what we do have, a blessing. Pastor Adam Munshaw has graciously offered to lead for the next eight weeks with any and all support I can offer. Together with our spouses, we will walk this new church adventure on the river with our core team of family and friends alongside us. We have no idea what God will do, but we will sing His praises to be a part of whatever He does. We are bringing our five loaves and two fish, knowing that God will go before us and abundantly do what ONLY He can do.
Pastor Shannon and Pastor Robert
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