You may be one of those people who are fortunate enough to have been on the receiving end of blessing.  See if you can answer yes to any of the following questions:

Do you have a home to live in?  Do you have a vehicle to drive?  Do you have food to eat?  Do you have clothes to wear?  Do you have a job to work?  Do you have health to enjoy life?Do you have family and friends to love?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you have been blessed!  Your Creator has seen fit to fill your life with the good stuff of His creation.  You may not have all you want, but in your heart, you know that you have more than you deserve.

Most all of the people I know, have been and are blessed.  But I have seen in my own life and in the lives of people I know a very disturbing trend beginning to develop.  If we are not careful, we can take what God has blessed us with and allow it to come between us!  You can use God’s blessings to build a wall or build a bridge!

For example:  God may bless you with a new job and in your effort to make the best of it, you may forget about how it is a blessing from God by allowing time that you should be using to serve and glorify God to be taken up by activities of work.  Before you know it, the blessing of your job has come between you and the One who gave it to you, the one who gives you the ability to do it!

Maybe God has blessed you with a house to live in and enjoy.  If you are not careful, you can become so focused on turning your house into a home, that you miss time spent with and in service to the One who has blessed you with it all.  We don’t really mean to at first, but after we start down the path it actually can become very intentional.

If you are fortunate enough to be blessed with good health, you should enjoy that health and do what it takes to try to continue in that lifestyle, but don’t let the blessing of good health and a fit body come between you and Your Creator.  Physical exercise is not a bad thing, but it is not the best time.  If you get so focused on the physical that you neglect the spiritual, you are headed for some tough times.

I am not trying to make anyone feel bad.  I am simply saying:  God has been good to us and we need to be careful to not allow the enemy to use God’s goodness as a wedge between us and our Creator.  Remember:  God is your Creator and Sustainer, He gives and He can take away!

Listen to how he put it in Exodus 20:3-6 – “You shall have no other gods before me.  “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,  but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

God loves you, blesses you and wants you to enjoy the blessing.  But He does not want the blessing to get in the way of the relationship!  I challenge you to get real and right about this today.  You will be glad you did!

I really need to be in bed, but wanted to take just a moment to share a few highlights from this incredible Sunday that God blessed me with being a part of!

-Had an awesome prayer time this morning!  I love spending time talking with and listening to God.  It is incredible what He will reveal to you, when you are paying attention!  If you don’t take time daily to invest some time with Him in prayer and meditation of His Word, then I really want to encourage you to make it a part of your day!  Remember:  Five minutes is better than zero!

-Love my Sunday School/Bible Fellowship/Sunday School Class!  What a great group of people to be real with.  God always manages to use each of us to teach and encourage one another.  I am extra excited about what God is going to do in the next few months with this group!

-Sweet time of worship at both campuses.  Major worship highlight for me today was watching a little boy on the front row totally engaged in giving glory to God.  Eyes closed, hands raised and mouth open singing praise to our God and King!

-Powerful Word given by the Holy Spirit to challenge us to think about the “MUCH MORE” that God has provided for all of us that have moved out of the flesh and into the Spirit.  So glad that God does not give me justice, because I could not handle what I deserve.  Thankful for His mercy and grace!  So thankful that I am extra super motivated about how I might get to serve Him this week.

-Ladies Banquet coming up at the end of the month.  The Banquet Team seems to have everything taken care of as usual!  Excited about what God is going to do and expecting a very special move of the Spirit this year!

-Evening Worship was sweet!  God taught us a great lesson from the example of David found in 1 Chronicles 17:1-27.  We learned about the battle between “our desire” and God’s will!  It is not an easy fight to fight, but one that is worth fighting!  Get this right and it changes everything!

-Sweet time of fellowship and some pretty good salads!  Got in a little extra time with some friends to round out the days festivities!  I am really thankful for the spiritual family and friends that God has blessed me with and pray that I am a blessing to them, as they are to me!

I guess that’s it for tonight!  Heading to bed with the idea that a good night of sleep would really make this a good day!  Night!  Night!

There is a battle that you find yourself engaged in on an almost daily basis!  It is a battle that takes place many times without your even realizing it is happening.  It is a battle between your desire and God’s will.

We know what we want or at least we think we know what we want.  What we seem to do so much of the time, is take what we want and call it’s God’s will.  We convince ourselves that just by saying it’s God’s will, it in some way magically becomes God’s will.

If our just saying it does not work, then we play the justification game.  If I can just justify it in my mind, then I can call it God’s will.  I have found that I can justify just about anything, if I think about it long enough!

The sad truth that we miss out on is this:  If we replace God’s will with our desire, we may get what we want or what we think is best in the short-term, but we really rob ourselves of what is best!

We jump into relationships and call it God’s will, only to later realize this is not really what we wanted.  We get caught up in activity that we enjoy for the moment, which we eventually get bored with, only later to realize we missed what was really important!

It happens all the time and it is costing us more than we could ever imagine.  I love God and because I love God I love you.  I want all of us to experience the success, fulfillment and blessing that flows out of living in a real and right relationship with God.

If you can live with calling it God’s Will and it not really being His will, then just keep playing the game and going through the motions.  If you want to live the amazing life that God has for you, then get honest with God, yourself and others.

Admit that you’ve been playing a game and are still tempted to play that game almost every day of your life.

Belive that God has something better and decide to not become satisfied with the satisfaction that comes from the justification of your limited mind.

Commit to saying no to self, so that you can say yes to God, knowing that what He has is so much better than anything else!

“So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.”  Galatians 5:16