BY FOLLOWING THE LORD WE CHOOSE LIFE AND RECEIVE GOD’S BLESSINGS
         
  • "… I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live;” – Deuteronomy 30:19b
 
God gives us two options: choosing life followed by His blessing or choosing death followed by being cursed. And in case that we do not know what to choose, He even tells us what the right choice is!
 
No one makes it to heaven based on making the right choice only once. It is not enough to ask Jesus to become the Lord of our lives and then continue to live in sin. God is sovereign. The dictionary defines that as: “supreme, absolute, unlimited, highest in rank.” God can do whatever He desires without being accountable to anyone, but that does not mean that He does not keep His promises to us in His Word. The Lord put certain limits on His power in relationship with us, by what He promised us in His Word, which allows for His permissive will to be enabled according to our choices or prayers.
 
The Bible urges us to study, pray and fast. The Lord has created us with free will and does not force us to do what is right. If everything that happens to us is only God’s will, it would mean that we are only puppets in His hands, who pray and fight in vain. It would mean that God would be the source of crime and evil. Which is not true. As we read in James 1:13: “let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am tempted by God;’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.”
 

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GOD FULFILLS WHAT HE HAS PROMISED IN HIS WORD​
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  • God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good? – Numbers 23:19
 
God is Almighty, but because He has given man free will, He respects it. When we choose sin, He warns us in our hearts and sometimes through others, but the Lord does not force us to do right. If He would force us, it would go against His nature. God gave us free will and He honors that free will.
 
As we all know from personal experience, the Holy Spirit warns us when we say or do something wrong, but He does not force the correction. We decide whether we will obey Him or not. It's the same with those who hurt or do us wrong. The Lord warns them, by bringing thoughts into their minds, to not do what they have planned, but the decision is theirs. Even when they continue with their evil plans, the Lord continues to work in our behalf, causing something good to come out of the wrongs that are done. In His love, God interferes and stops the bad plans, when they are beyond what can be used for our good or even of those who would do them.
 
Any pain or hurt can be hard to endure; but we can take comfort in the truth that compared to eternity, what happens in this lifetime is just a moment. The Lord even hurts with us, and if we ask Him to help us, while keeping a pure heart, He will strengthen us, help us grow spiritually and become more like Jesus. Our Lord suffered in our stead, tremendously more than any human being ever did or will do, just for us to be saved and spend eternity with Him. No other love can compare to His!!!


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THE LORD BLESSES US WHEN WE ARE REPROACHED FOR HIS NAME
        
  • If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. – 1 Peter 4:14
 
Whenever an injustice is done to us, the Lord gives us a higher measure of anointing of the Holy Spirit, to be able to overcome the suffering. God wants us to be able to handle all trials victoriously (even the ones we cause), and so much more when we suffer unjustly or are persecuted because we are Christ's.
 
This verse is not about being filled with the Holy Spirit, which is an inward experience. When the Holy Spirit rests upon us, the glory of the Lord will give us favor with others. Even the evil people will know then, that there is something different about us and will be hindered in carrying out their evil plans. This anointing is a wonderful gift and it empowers us to act in the name of Jesus. Life is way easier when we depend upon the Holy Spirit.

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THE LORD BLESSES AND HEALS THOSE WHO LIVE FOR HIM
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  • “So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” - Exodus 23:25-26
 
The word translated as “serve” is “abad” in the Hebrew language and it means much more than to simply serve. It means to perform acts of worship in total obedience to God, that lead to a new lifestyle, where God is one's true Lord instead of one's “self.” When Jesus is our true Lord, we live in total obedience to Him and worship Him with all we are, God promises to bless our provision and take the sickness away.
 
God is Lord even over infertility and miscarriage, and He promises to bless His children with long life so that they will not die prematurely. There is no sickness bigger than our Lord’s power to heal and He never said in the Bible that it is not His will to heal or that He cannot do it.


GOD DOES WHAT HE PROMISES HE DOES
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  • For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us. - 2 Corinthians 1:20
 
God always fulfills His promises. Like Moses records in Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”
 
The Old Testament promises are first recorded for the Jewish people, but through Jesus we are “grafted into the cultivated olive tree” becoming “partakers of the root and fatness of the olive tree” (Romans 11:17). This means that we have became God’s people too and the general promises for Israel, are true for us also.
 
We can believe and pray based on God’s promises, that the Holy Spirit will reveal the answer for whatever is appropriate to our situation. If we ask God for the right promise in our situation and are careful to understand that promise in context, then we find the confirmation for it in one or two other places in the Bible and, we can pray with confidence based upon the promise, believing that God will hear and answer us.

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HEAVENLY BLESSINGS
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, - Ephesians 1:3  
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God created us with the capacity to think, make decisions, feel and especially, with free will. We are to choose to bless our Lord by praising Him living right for Him with thankful hearts. Because David understood that our praise blesses God, he has urged us to bless the Lord and praise Him for all His works in Psalms 103 and 104.
 
God blesses us all the time, with true life-giving “spiritual blessings.” The Lord has already prepared every spiritual blessing for us, not withholding anything. Father God has amazing blessings for all of us who are in Christ and they all come from the Holy Spirit. God blesses us with His gifts and we are to bless Him with our praises that come from sincere, loving and obedient hearts.
 
Whenever we realize how much we have received from God and all He has done for us, we feel compelled to give Him something back. Even if we would give Him all our possessions, they are already His. But God loves and blesses us so that we will respond to Him with so much love that we start to praise, glorify and honor His holy name. All the gifts of the Holy Spirit are meant to benefit and empower us to be able to live victoriously and reign in life.
Copyright © 2020 Carmen Pușcaș. May be used for personal study or instruction but shall not be copied and/or distributed in whole or part without permission or for financial profit.