We can all easily say the prayer of salvation and receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We can all secure our place in heaven and gain everlasting life when our time here on earth is up. Yes, that prayer of salvation can do all that for you just by you deciding to give your heart to Jesus. Praying that little prayer however, is the easy part. Then what? What's next? Unfortunately for many, the blessings seem to stop there. Even though they have nabbed themselves an eternal, ring side, boxed seat in the presence of God in the here after, they remain imature, elementary, and juvenile in their Christianity for their entire lifetime here on earth and never fully experience all of God's best.
So many Christians completely and unknowingly miss the boat on all the wonderfully powerful blessings and phenominal perks that could be theirs. God does not swoop in with the wave of a magic wand and poof our lives are transformed while we sit lazily on our sofas! Consequently, these blessings of unspeakable elements of pure, radiant, joy, often times go untouched and ignored. Our blessings fall by the wayside simply because we dont even know they exist.
People often fail to realize that there is a large instruction manual, the Bible, that comes with that tiny, simple prayer of salvation. By us diligently reading, learning and seeking the wisdom of God through His word, we can easily follow the correct path that can permanently seal our salvation. Failing to utilize all the tremendous blessings available to us is a regrettable fact. It is like getting a new ipad for Christmas and simultaneously tossing the cords, batteries, and chargers in the trash. You are then left with this awesome, highly functional, piece of technology but you will never get to see all of the brilliant things it can do. It will never be used to its full potential and purpose for which it was created.
It is precisely the same for many Christians. Often after dedicating their lives to Christ, they make no further efforts in pursuing their new commitment to being a steward of God. The road seems to end there for many. They continue to live the same old, average, insecure, monotonous, type of life. They have limited joy, no peace, and are still living with grudges, anger and unforgiveness. They are often still living frustrated, in angst and fearful. The ho hum, just getting by, mentality remains their habit. They remain selfish and self centered. The "What about me?" question gets repeatedly asked and is their main anthem. The negativity that inhabits their mindset never fully diminishes. They feel infinitely sorry for themselves, never rising up and fully living the blessed, bountiful, joyful and successful life that the Bible says we all can and should have. Many of us just never get to experience those magnificent moments of serene peace, divine interceding, and the abundant provisions God has stored up for us all. We instead remain cemented into the vast depths of mediocracy.
I once read an analogy that depicts our first stop after arriving at those pearly gates of heaven. It goes on to say that stop number one is at that of a huge storage unit filled with millions of extremely large boxes. On every box there is a name clearly etched on the front. There is one box for every single one of us. The Boxes are filled to the brim with all of the copious, unused blessings that the Lord had wanted each one of us to receive, yet there in their boxes, they wastefully remained.
Imagine shopping for a mass of wonderful Christmas gifts for your children. You wait excitedly to watch them receive all of the thoughtful gifts that you hand picked with each child in mind ; only they never open and receive the abounding haul that was waiting for them. It would be so sad and disapointing to see those gifts go untouched. We would miss out on seeing our kids be blessed, happy and full of joy. Likewise, God, our Father, sadly, continually misses out.
How can we graduate into mature Christians so that we can receive the blessings that are stored up for us in our personalized storage boxes? How can we walk in miraculous favor? I'm sure that you, like me, would like nothing more than to arrive in heaven to see our boxes completely empty, with not even a mere trace of blessings left behind because we had received each and every remarkable gift God had for us.
Psalm 106:3
Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are those who observe justice [treating others fairly] and who do right and are in right standing with God at all times.
By faith, faith and more faith we can insure that our boxes will be vacant! We can start by studying and knowing the word of God. You can have what the Bible says you can have if you apply obedience to His word. We can follow the commandments and do our best to keep them. We can put God before everything else and in doing so, we will promptly begin to change our ways. The more you understand the word, the more you will begin to know the promises that God has for you. You will see that His love for you knows no boundries. He cannot love you more than He does at this very moment reguardless of where you are in your walk with Him. By being able to remotely comprehend the magnitude of God's love, you will begin to grow in your relationship with Him. His words will fill you with an overwhelming knowledge and you will be forever changed, forever blessed. You will soon begin to transform everything, the way you think, the way you act, and who you will become.
For you make him to be blessed and a blessing forever; You make him exceedingly glad with the joy of Your presence.
Psalm 21: 6
By spending time with the Lord, putting Him first in your life, worshiping and praising Him, your eyes will begin to open and your heart will begin to supernaturally shift. A complete metamorphosis takes place as you draw closer and closer to God. The chains of mediocracy and the strongholds that once bound you will be eliminated from your life. Inviting Christ into your heart and soul and trusting Him with every precious detail, becomes the new status quo as you follow His path for your life. You can start living by example by allowing your new, luminous light to be a beacon of hope to others. You will begin to see blessing after astonishing blessing become your current way of life as you begin receiving God's grace for all that He has in store for you. You undoubtedly will begin to fathom wholeheartedly that His sole purpose to bless you is so you can be a blessing to others. Being willing and able to love and bless others is the definition of pure, unspeakable, joy. It is what classifies you as being a mature Christian.
Isaiah 43:19
For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
Through your ever growing faith, God will take you on an amazing journey. Your willingness to put the time and effort into this most important relationship, will lead you to a glorious victory filled life. Seek Him first.
Matthew 6:33
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
Psalm 21:3
For You send blessings of good things to meet him; You set a crown of pure gold on his head.
Heavenly Father, we long to become mature Christians by growing in our faith. We want to be a blessing to others as you transform us from glory to glory. Thank you Father!
In Jesus name!
Amen
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