A New Level

 

 

Have you ever been at a point in your faith walk where it seems God is withholding external blessings?  God is working in you to hone your faith so that it is more focused on Him then on the receiving of an outward blessing.  Will you still praise God as God if He withholds outward blessings?

 

God wants a genuine relationship with each one of us.  Do you want your children to love you based on what material thing you give them?  Can you imagine your child only doing what is expected of them if they are given a toy each time?  I don't think so ~ we want love to be real and that is what God wants too.  God will engineer our circumstances so that we experience emptiness to raise our faith to a higher level.  Even if we see no external blessings, we still need to praise God as God.  He gave His only Son to die on the cross for us so that we would not have to suffer eternal death, and this is not because of anything we've done!  Until we can understand that that is the ultimate prize, God will keep taking us to those empty places.  He wants our faith to come up to a whole new level.  Don't let the dark times in your life send you into a tailspin, instead, continue to praise God as God.  He is sovereign, He loves you, and He is right there beside you.

 

John 16:33

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

 

*Reference "Utmost For His Highest" April 4 devotion

 

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the gift of Your Son. Remind us daily that even if we never see another external blessing, Your Son is ALL that matters and we will continue to praise You in ALL circumstances.

 

Philippians 3: 13-15

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.  All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.