Robbing God

Think back to the Christmas season. Imagine yourself with your family driving through residential areas at night to admire the Christmas decorations and lights people work so hard on. For the most part, you spend your time driving through the upper-class neighborhoods, where money is no problem for anyone living there. They obviously have so much money they are able to go all out on the lights to attract the most attention during the season. As we look at each house we can tell they have to be a blessed family to have all that they do. It’s just as God said “…But now we call the arrogant blessed...” ~ Malachi 3:15. But I bet if you were to enter through those front doors, of some of the homes, you would come to realize they do have everything they could ever want or need but for some crazy reason, they are still not happy. They don’t feel as blessed as they should be. And for majority of the time it’s because the joy they are looking for in the money they have is not the real joy that they need.

The Lord said “…Return to me, and I will return to you…” ~ Malachi 3:7. Give to God and he will give back to you. Sounds simple. God has provided you with exactly what you need at that given time. For majority of people He has given you a job, a house, a family, and fulfilled several of your wants and desires. For God to be so giving why would you not take the time to give back to show your thanks and appreciation for what He has done for you.

The Lord said “Test me in this and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.” ~ Malachi 3:10. After a statement like this who would not dare try! It’s a tenth of your earnings. God doesn’t need your money, but He does need your commitment to Him. He has provided you with the health and abilities to do what you do to earn money, so give back and thank Him every day for those qualities He has freely given you. “They will be mine in the day when I make up my treasured possessions. I will spare them, just as in compassion a man spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between those who serve God and those who do not.” ~ Malachi 3:17-18. More than earning money, God has placed you in a job (whether you think it’s a “God Glorifying Job” or not) to witness to others and to serve those around you. So don’t rob God by taking the things He has given you. Take time to share what He has given you and glorify our glorious God! You will be blessed!

You Have Not, Because You Have Asked Not

Mark 11:24 ~ “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”

Prayer, what a powerful tool that most people push off to the side. It’s funny how it seems like only in special occasions is it okay to pray. Sure you may pray as a family before dinner; before Thanksgiving, Easter, and Christmas lunch; or when times are rough and people are hurting. And in all of those times there seems to be this generic prayer that everyone says “Dear God, Thank you for this day and this food you have provided. May it be nourishment to our body. Amen.” Sure that is a great prayer, but how often do we get alone with God and really thank Him, ask His forgiveness, and ask Him where He needs us that day so that we may glorify Him? For a lot of people, including me, it is not near as often as it should be. It’s as if we are walking through life and trying to make it our life and live it as we are wanting.

It says in Luke 11:9-10 ~ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” This all comes from a simple conversation and time spent with God. He will provide you and equip you with everything you could ever need if you just pray and ask. But the motives behind a prayer are very crucial.

James 4:2-3 ~ “You want something but you don’t get it….You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures”. You may think that you can trick God into giving you what you want if you just ask in the right ways, but God knows exactly what you are going to do with the things He gives you before He gives them. You need to make yourself right with God, and seek the path He wants to lead you down. Pray for guidance and direction. Pray that He makes those paths clear for you and opens your eyes to what all He has in store just for you!

Prayer is like coming to the dinner table. You come in after a long day of work and are starving. You sit down and see all the food around you. You begin digging in and indulging all of the tasteful food placed in front of you. And by the end of the meal you have been refilled and are full of energy to keep going. God gives you that energy you need through prayer as he does with the food you consume. Psalm 34:8 ~ “Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!” Taste and see what the Lord has in store for you. He is waiting for you to just ask. Don’t just sit back and let life roll past you.

We have all seen and read what He has done and what He will do for all of those who believe. When you are reading a book, you don’t read the first chapter and the last and call it good. The stuff in the middle is just as important and leads you to the end conclusion. The things between what He has already done and what He will do are just as important, especially during your lifetime. Make more time for God each day, ask Him for the things you need. I promise He will pour great blessings on you and set you on a new and fresh foundation!

Stress

Rick Warren once said “God gives you just enough time to do His Will. If you always feel behind, you’re trying to do more than he intended.”

Just like me, I’m sure you feel stressed at times. It can be that you are stressed with work, school, and/or family. It often feels like there are never enough hours in the day to get the things you need to get done, done. You can try hiding your stress when you are around others but that never resolves the problem, and in facts makes it worse. What usually happens is that when we feel like we are behind, we work harder and longer, which creates more stress and takes time away from the social part of life where you relax and enjoy time with family and friends. There is an equal balance of work vs. social time, and no part is greater than the other.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is steadfast. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.” ~ Isaiah 26:3-4. When you are set to a schedule with God being the forefront of each new day, the Lord will provide peace and calmness to your life. He will place you where you need to be in order to accomplish the goals He has placed for you. Like Rick said, “If you always feel behind, you’re trying to do more than he intended.” God will give you all the time you need to complete His task, so if you are feeling behind, it could be because you are trying to do more than He intended you to do.

Freshmen year of college I was asked to take a strengths test to see what my top five strengths were. Come to find out, my top strength is Achiever. An achiever is described as a constant need for achievement. It said “…you feel as if every day starts at zero and by the end of the day you must achieve something tangible in order to feel good about yourself. No matter how much you may feel you deserve a day of rest, if the day passes without some form of achievement, no matter how small, you will feel dissatisfied.” Satin is great at making you feel like a failure. He is great at telling you, “No, you haven’t completed this. Why don’t you do just this one fun thing before you start this next project, or why don’t you just take a rest and get back to it later? And so on and so on.” You begin taking on these task that fill up your day, and by the end of the day you are left farther back than when you started the day. You can try going to bed later, getting up earlier, and skipping lunch to catch up but ten times out of ten, that will never work until God is put first in your day.

The last part of the achiever definition said “You have a fire burning inside you. It pushes you to do more, to achieve more. After each accomplishment is reached, the fire dwindles for a moment, but very soon rekindles itself, forcing you toward the next accomplishment.” This fire that is inside of you encouraging and pushing you is great to have, as long as you are using it to complete the task God has given you. I hope that you take some time to reflect on your everyday schedule. You can even write down everything you do each day and after a week look back and see where God was put in that schedule. See where you met the goals He had given you for that week. I promise, it will put things in perspective and maybe even be a huge eye opener. Then with a few changes the feelings of being behind and stressed will no longer exist! “But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” ~ Psalm 34:10

The Little Things

I have just started my new job at an accounting firm, so this week has been full of adjustments. I left a job which I knew every person and each person’s personality, as well as a building I could run through backwards and forwards with my eyes closed in the dark! It was a place I felt totally comfortable in and a place where I have reach great recognition! It may have only been a part-time job and only for two and a half short years, but it felt like a big portion of my life! I had worked hard to get where I was, so leaving was harder than I imagined. But when all good things come to an end, God always opens another door and a new direction in your life.

I am now in a new location across town with new people (most of which are a lot older than me), I don’t have as much interaction with customers, for the most part I am in one room or at a desk, and to top it off my pay went down nearly two dollars! Now, you are probably wondering why in the world I took this job and how in the world can I be excited about this! Well, this job is in the career field I am studying and God has blessed me with this opportunity I have been searching for the past few years, so I know great things are to come from it!

But I must back up real quick. When I heard about this job and found out the details, I have to admit, I wasn’t as excited as I had hoped for. I found out that this job was a lot of errand running (going to the bank, post office, getting the oil changed in the partners cars, etc) Yes, there was a little accounting I got to look over time to time, but it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Jesus said in Luke 16:10 – “Unless you are faithful in the small matters, you won’t be faithful in the large ones” After reading this, this job requirements and thinking about why I was really here started to make a lot more sense. God may be cutting my pay and putting me in a place I am unfamiliar with, but I felt him saying that if I can’t start from the bottom again with the little things, I will never amount to what it takes to become the accountant I hope to be when the big things come my way.

Matthew 24:45-47 ~ “Who is a faithful, sensible servant…? If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. I assure you, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns.” These little things that I am doing now are testing my faithfulness. I have complete faith in God and the plans He has for me, so I know that being where I am today is just part of the path of life that He is leading me down. I hope that you can take time to think about where you are today, how you got to where you are, and where you see God leading you in the future. When you get frustrated with the little things in life, know that you are just being tested “and when the master returns and finds the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward”.