LS039 - The Already Manifest Blessing

So we conclude that there is still a full and complete “rest” waiting for believers to experience. As we enter into God’s faith-rest life we cease from our own works, just as God celebrates His finished works and rests in them. So then we must give our all and be eager to experience this faith-rest life, so that no one falls short by following the same pattern of doubt and unbelief. Heb 4:9-11 TPT

Hello!

In days like these where it can be too easy to forget one's blessings, it is helpful to have an anchor point in scripture where we can go to be reminded of the fact that all that we need for this life has already been made available to us.

It has been my aim, ever since God redirected my focus of this blog to more spiritual matters, to hopefully give examples of this manifest blessing in my own life so that you can see the power in transparency...

Power in Transparency

For if I were to be writing one thing on here and yet living a complete dichotomy, I would be nothing more than a hypocrite.

I cannot abide hypocrisy!

It is one thing to profess Christ, it is another entirely to follow after Him wholeheartedly. If I merely state Christ as my Lord and Saviour, yet have not fully given Him authority over my life, I become what Craig Groeschel calls a Christian atheist in his book "The Christian Atheist".

I say one thing but live out another.

the I claim Jesus' Lordship, but live like He doesn't exist.

Therefore, it is helpful to have an anchor point firmly embedded in scripture that can challenge me the closer I get to becoming a so-called Christian atheist. It acts as a bungee chord and pulls me back to centring my life upon Jesus.

I don't get it right all of the time, believe you me and no doubt still have some areas of my life that need to be surrendered fully over to God. Yet I know that "there remains a rest" for God's chosen people. A posture that I can take up in life that says that even if I don't know what every event means in my life, I know that God is still in control (as recent posts were my way of emphasising).

The Road is Long

Life is a journey of many twists and turns along with its fair share of ups and downs. It oftentimes is what we do in those "down" seasons, or valley moments, where our true character is being revealed and refined to be more like Christ.

The already manifest blessing is, to put it simply, my chance to echo the life of Christ by seeking others' needs as well as my own, by seeking to do the will of the Father, by making sure that my character matches up more and more with Christ as every day goes by.

Yet not courtesy of anything I can do!

My life is meant to be a living surrender (Romans 12:1) where I read my Bible and seek to emulate Christ's earthly life, even though I will never match up to His glory.

John MacArthur said in a recent message I listened to that both the goal and the prize of a believer are to be made more like Christ. The only way that I can do that is, I believe, to become a living surrender to the authority of the Bible and the God who comes with it.

You cannot have one without the other.

I have my issues and struggles right now, but every day that goes by, I begin to think more and more like God does, by lining up my thoughts with what scripture says, pushing out old ways and mindsets that ceased being useful the moment I got saved.

Final Thought

It has to be my aim, every day, to try and think less and less like the world and more and more like God and the only way that can come about is by saturating myself with the Bible and sound biblical teaching every day.

I have a schedule that I recently shuffled ensuring that I am getting quality teaching every single day. I do not get a day off because God never takes a day off in manifesting His work.

So why should I?

Peace!

===TLP===