Tag Archives: pursuit

Being Blessed Is Not Enough!

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It seems as if the main goal or the over-riding obsession in many Christian circles today is just to get blessings or to be blessed! Now, aside from our fundamental failure to understand that God has already blessed us with every blessing we will ever need (See Ephesians 1:3 and 2 Peter 1:3. Our real need is not for blessings or to be blessed more, but rather, to know how to access and appropriate the blessings we already have!), this emphasis on blessings also indicates another fault in our spiritual understanding. Let me show you what I’m talking about!

In God’s economy, blessings are not, and were never meant to be, the end, but rather, the means to the end! In other words, blessings were never meant to be our destination, but rather the means, tools, or vehicles used to aid and assist us in reaching our destination. When we are so captivated and fixated on blessings, we’re just like a person, so in love with their new car that they just drive around, without ever going anywhere! It is a ridiculous situation for a person to have a vehicle, only to use it to drive around, not understanding that the real purpose of the vehicle is not just to be driven around, but to be actually used to get from point A to point B! In like manner, many Christians are trying to exercise their faith to obtain blessings to just ‘drive around’ with no clue that the real purpose of blessings is transportation and facilitation!

So, when we make blessings or being blessed the main goal or objective, we err on two points! We err by trying to get what we already have! And then, we err by making the means the end instead of understanding the means’ purpose is to help us get to the end! Being blessed or having blessings without understanding their purpose to assist in reaching the destination is not enough! God created and blessed us for much more than that!

In Genesis 1:28, we read: “And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (ESV) Notice the wording of the text! God didn’t just bless them to bless them; God blessed them so that they would be in position to do something! God blessed them in order for them to fulfill their purpose, which was to be fruitful (productive), multiply, fill and subdue the earth, to have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing on the earth! They were blessed for the purpose of fulfilling their assignment! That’s the principle! God doesn’t bless just to bless; God blesses to enable, to empower, to facilitate the execution of His will! The mandate has not changed! The same order given to Adam and Eve has been passed down to us! We are not blessed just to be blessed, we are blessed in order to have and exercise dominion!

Now, what does it mean to have and exercise dominion? What was God doing in Genesis 1:28? God was commissioning Adam and Eve as His proxy rulers on earth! God blessed Adam and Eve so that they might rule the earth in His stead! The emergence of sin DID NOT negate or cancel the Dominion Mandate! In fact, that’s why Jesus came! Jesus came to deal with sin so that, through him, man’s capacity to fulfill the Dominion Mandate might be restored!

Oh! We are so limited and little in our thinking! While we are running around making what we already have the focus of our faith, God has a much grander idea for us! We just want to be blessed, but God wants us to be ‘god’ on earth! God wants us to be Him on earth! (I realized I am treading on what some might perceive to be slippery theological turf here. That’s why I used a little ‘g.’ We are not gods in the sense that we are deity, but rather in the sense that our purpose is to function as God’s representatives upon the earth.) Hence, our main objective should not be for God to bless us just so we might be healthy, wealthy, and wise, but rather our main objective should be that God might execute His will upon the earth through us! I heard a song, not too long ago, and the singer was pleading: “Lord, whatever You’re doing in this season, don’t do it without me!” Now, I understood what the author of the song was saying; he, himself, personally wanted to be a partner with God in whatever God is going to do. But, whatever God is going to do in this season will only be done through us! God only rained down meat and bread from Heaven one time! His normal means of feeding us when we’re hungry is to use our neighbor to do it!

The bottom line is that God’s purpose in blessing us is so that we might be a blessing-hose, not a blessing-pool! God’s intent is not for blessings just to flow ‘to’ us; but rather for blessings to flow ‘through’ us! Blessings are meant to be tools to be used, not just items to be consumed! So, if your main goal and pre-occupation is just to be blessed; being blessed is not enough, God wants so much more than that for you! His purpose in blessing you is that you might be (represent) Him wherever you are!

Seeking the Kingdom of God First!

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JKingdom of Godesus said in Matthew 6:31-33: “Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (ESV)  

But, it’s kind of hard to look for something when you not exactly sure what you’re looking for! It’s like when I was a boy, my father would often tell me to go and bring him a certain tool. Now, he had already previously told me the names of the tools and what they looked like, but being an unfocused little boy, of course I had forgotten his lessons. So, when he told me to go and bring him a tool, more often than not, I would end up bringing him the wrong tool because I didn’t know what I was looking for! Most of the time I would bring two or three, hoping that one of them was the right one!

That is the way it is with many people today in regard to the instructions of Jesus to seek first the Kingdom of God! They don’t exactly know what Jesus was talking about so they just assume Jesus was saying: “Try to live right and make going to Heaven your top priority!” But is that really what Jesus said? Is that really what Jesus meant when he said: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God?” I really don’t think so!

When we look at the preaching and teaching of Jesus, one of the things that is immediately obvious is the fact that he was obsessed with the subject of the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven! The Kingdom was the main focus of his preaching and teaching. The mighty works and miracles he performed were all about demonstrating the power of the Kingdom! Most of the parables and stories he told were about illustrating what the Kingdom is like! In Matthew 4:17, at the start of his public ministry, we read: “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” (ESV)  It interesting that in most evangelical preaching, the theme is: “Repent, so that you might go to Heaven when you die!” But that is NOT what Jesus preached! When Jesus preached and taught about the Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven, most of the time he was not referring to a place called “Heaven!” When Jesus preached and taught about the Kingdom of God, most of the time he was referring to the present rule or reign of God in the heart and lives of people! He was talking about submitting to God’s rule and authority!

So, when he said: “But, seek ye first the Kingdom of God.” He was saying; “Seek to make the rule, authority, and word of God your first priority!” He was also telling his disciples (and those who would follow him now) to seek the Kingdom of God with the same intensity and urgency that those who don’t know God (the Gentiles) seek food, drink, and clothing! In the context of the passage, Jesus wasn’t telling his disciples to make going to Heaven their main pursuit, he was telling them to make the authority, the rule, the reign, and the authoritative word of God the main pursuit of their lives! As they did that, all the necessities needed for life would be added to them as a matter of course, and of course, they would go to Heaven when they died!

There are many “would-be-followers” of Christ today who are seeking blessings, prosperity, health and wealth! But we are never instructed to seek those things in the Bible. In fact, the Bible teaches that those things would seek us as we make seeking the Kingdom of God our top priority! (See Deuteronomy 28, Psalm 23:6, Matthew 6:31-33) However, we can’t make seeking the Kingdom of God our top priority if we don’t know what the Kingdom of God is! We will be just like I was as a little boy, trying to help my father. I can’t count the number of times he told me to bring him a pair of pliers, but I ended up bringing him a pair of wire-cutters instead!