The Superior Blessing

By D’Ann Davis

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 1:3

Family. Friends. Wealth. Health. Travel. Security. Beauty. Success. These words come to mind when most of us think of blessing. At least that is what typically comes to my mind. When I pray blessings for people they often fall into one or more of these categories. Blessings I pray for myself certainly can dwell there. None of these areas of life are innately bad and many of them are part of God’s blessings, but they are neither ends in themselves or the fullness of what God has in store for us as His children. Often “blessings” in these areas can actually be curses because the allure to idolize the gifts shifts our gaze from the Giver. Worldly ideas of prosperity do not match God’s ideas of it. The Bible does not teach a prosperity gospel or a poverty gospel. It shows us that life is found in the Giver, not in the gifts. It favors spiritual blessings over material.

Spiritual blessings truly are the deepest ones. They touch our souls and fill us in ways that transient pleasures of this life cannot afford us. No house or spouse or job can truly fill one’s soul in a sustainable way, but spiritual blessings in Christ always will. God loves to give us the desires of our hearts as we delight in Him. He pursues relationship with us before we ever know Him, and He is determined in His efforts to demonstrate His lovingkindness and generosity.

What strikes me is that not only does God want to bless us spiritually, but that in Christ, He blesses us with every spiritual blessing available. God is not stingy. He wants to give us life to the full (John 10:10). “No good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly,” Psalm 84:11 instructs. Psalm 16:11 teaches us, “You make known to me the path of life; in Your presence there is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” God created the concepts of blessing, pleasure, goodness, and abundance. These are not manmade constructs that God arbitrarily dispenses. He created blessing and He seeks to bless. His blessings for His children are good and not evil. What we need versus what we might want. And He has made every spiritual blessing available in the person and work of Christ Jesus.

If you are like me, you can lose sight of the spiritual blessings in hope of the material ones. You can feel like your life is lacking in some way because of what you may or may not have physically speaking. But in Christ we lack nothing. In Him we have everything. In the midst of frustration or doubt, let us fix our eyes on the Author and Finisher of our faith, knowing that He is the culmination of all blessing Himself. He is what our heart truly longs for, and He is the one true fulfillment of our desires. In Him we have all we need. In Him we have, not some spiritual blessing, but every spiritual blessing. Let us rest in this truth and drink deeply of the Living Water who slakes the thirst of our weary souls. Let us seek Him with all of our hearts until we find Him, knowing that in relationship with Him, we are blessed.

Father, we praise You for being a God of blessing and generosity. Please bless us with Your presence, and help us be close to You. Help us to continually seek life in You and not apart from You, trusting that all spiritual blessings find their home in You. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

Trusting the Father

By Darrel Auvenshine 

There is none like the Lord; there is none beside You; there is no rock like our God.”

I Samuel 2:2 “

Perhaps at times we find it difficult to trust our heavenly Father. This is especially true in cases where our earthly fathers were not trustworthy. Maybe your father wasn’t present in your life, or maybe he was there, but didn’t connect with you.

One of the greatest obstacles between intimacy with the Father and us is our misperception of who God is. We view God many times through the lens with which we see our earthly fathers. So if our dad was compassionate, we would see God as compassionate. If our dad was demanding, we would also perceive God to be demanding. 

Our earthly father’s weakness or brokenness does not change the truth that God is a trustworthy Father who desires to know His children. Our hope is to get to know God for who He is, not who we perceive Him to be based upon broken human relationship.

Was your earthly father trustworthy?

How have you found trusting God difficult?

Reflect on a time when God was tender with you, revealing a part of Himself to you.

Insincere Confession

by D’Ann Davis

“Come, let us return to the Lord; for He has torn us, that He may heal us; He has struck us down, and He will bind us up. After two days He will revive us; on the third day He will raise us up, that we may live before Him. Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord; His going out is sure as the dawn; He will come to us as the showers; as the spring rains that water the earth.’ What shall I do with you O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away. Therefore I have hewn them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth, and my judgment goes forth as the light. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.”

Hosea 6:1-6

Believers know that confession is a part of the Christian life. First John 1:9 reminds us of this virtue in saying, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” James 5:16 exhorts, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” We see instruction to and benefits from confessing our sins. However, when this confession is insincere, we are disobediently spurning the Lord’s reproofs. This was the sin of the Israelites in Hosea six.

The first three verses of this passage are beautifully written. The Israelites were nothing if not poetic. Their praising of God’s faithfulness and call to return to Him feels moving in its fervor and artistry. However, God knew the hearts of the Israelites. He knew their confession was empty and would not last. They had great things to say, but their heart had not resolved to truly come to Him in repentance. Their sorrow was not a 2 Corinthians 7:10 godly sorrow that leads to life and repentance, but a worldly sorrow that leads to death. God was not fooled by their shallow eloquence. And He is not fooled by ours.

God desires a broken spirit and a broken and contrite heart more than He desires sacrifice, per Psalm 51:17. He sees past our façade and knows our hearts. He knows when we are grieved over consequences alone and unmoved by grieving the Holy Spirit. We may convince others of our feigned sincerity, but we do not fool Him. He is the One to whom we answer. We might think we are getting away with something by our empty words, but we get nothing past our all-knowing Father.

He says in 6:6, “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Thank God we have a God who cares more about our hearts’ postures than He does the outward appearance! He is invested in our lives. He cares about our true confession, repentance, healing, freedom, and life. He wants more for us than our flimsy confessions that keep us in bondage. He wants authentic agreement with Him about our sin that we might be saved from it through Him. Thankfully we have a Savior who died not only for our sins, but also for our sinfully motivated and poor acknowledgements of that sin. Thank God He made a way for us even in this.

So let us cast aside the sin that so easily entangles us and repent of the impotent, disingenuous confessions we make. Let us confess in humility and truth, knowing that the truth sets us free.

“Dear God, thank You for loving us even in our insincere confessions. Help us to come to You in humility and truth and approach the throne of grace with confidence, knowing we have a great High Priest who can sympathize with our weakness. Please continually draw us to You and sanctify our motives and confessions that we might be pleasing to You and restored to You. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.”

Sin Altars

by D’Ann Davis

“Because Ephraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning.”

Hosea 8:11

Matter of fact would be a good way to describe Hosea 8:11. In a verse that states the obvious, it is interesting how easily we can ignore its truth in our daily lives. The people of Ephraim, a tribe of Israel, had increased the altars they made to sin, and thus, unsurprisingly, they found themselves sinning.

We do this all the time in our daily lives, giving our flesh provision and then feeling we have been caught off guard when we fall into sin. We keep the contact information, visit that neighborhood, read that false doctrine, remove the filter from our computers, and then wonder why we cannot seem to overcome our fleshly battles. We are like our predecessors. Multiplying altars for sin in our lives, we sin.

Constant falls need not surprise us when this is our modus operandi. Frequent surrender to the flesh is to be expected when we leave the door open for sin, even if it is merely a toe in the door. Satan has a way of making a foothold out of a toe in the door. Thankfully though, we have a Savior who sought to save us from our half-hearted measures. In Him we find the grace to be freed from sin along with the thresholds that would lead to that sin. We have the grace to be above reproach. We have the power to overcome every obstacle between the Father and us. We have the freedom to choose Him in the matters of conscience and wisdom.

So in our fight for freedom, we can learn from the people of Ephraim. Remembering that making an altar for sin will lead to sin we can be better equipped to fight the good fight. Instead of worrying if we will have what it takes to overcome the temptation, when possible, we can simply remove the temptation. Matthew 5:6 tells us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” When we want to do whatever is necessary to walk obediently before God, He will satisfy that desire and help us. So let us break down our altars for sinning and instead direct our hearts toward Christ, trusting that in Him, we can conquer both the temptation and what leads to it.

Dear Lord, please turn our hearts toward You and away from sin and the altars for sinning that will ultimately trip us up. Help us to find satisfaction in You and Your righteousness that we might walk in Your ways with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.