Blessed to Do What?

I want to follow up yesterday's posting with another thought concerning God's blessings. Yesterday I encouraged all of us to regularly pause to thank God for his blessings. It is only due to His grace that we enjoy anything at all!

Today, I want to remind you of another truth that I was reminded of this past Sunday by our missionary, Jim Momeyer. Jim and his wife Deb serve with Grace Brethren International Missions in the African country of Cameroun. In his sermon, he shared this principle: We have been "BLESSED TO BLESS FOR HIS PRAISE!" He drew this principle from the first three verses of Psalm 67 which reads as follows:

"May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, ²that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. ³May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you."

Jim pointed out to us that what this portion of Scripture teaches is that God doesn't generously bless us so that we can enjoy his blessings just for ourselves. No, God blesses us so that in turn we can bless others ... and all for the praise of God's glory! Jim wrapped up his sermon by encouraging us to ask ourselves these three rather pointed questions:

- How has God blessed me?
- How am I in turn blessing others?
- Are people "bragging" on God because of me?

Good questions! I urge you to use these questions to guide you in a time of self-evaluation. If you are in any way like me (and I suspect many of you are) - you will find that you all too often horde God's blessings for yourself!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj