God spoke to my heart about our message in a funny way this week. Quite often when I text my kids, I end by texting “God Bless you.” Inevitably, about 80 percent of the time, when I swipe the letters on my phone, it turns out “Good Bless you.” This week, as that happened for the umpteenth time, I went back to change the text to “God Bless you,” and the Lord spoke to my spirit and said, “I do bless you with ‘GOOD.’” I thought, “Yes you do God, and thank you for reminding me of that very fact. You bless us with ‘good’ all of the time. In fact, the Scripture tells us You look to and fro in order to bless us.”
2 Chronicles 16:9 – For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him (NIV).
Isn’t it amazing how God uses the simplest things to remind us that He is always on our side, that His heart for us is always goodness and blessing and help!
He gives us so many promises assuring us that He desires to heap His goodness upon us. Let’s just look at a few more.
Psalm 34:10 — The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing (NIV).
Psalm 31:19 — How great is the goodness you have stored up for those who fear you. You lavish it on those who come to you for protection, blessing them before the watching world (NLT).
Deuteronomy 28:2 — And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God (KJV). (Now go ahead and read the rest of Deut. 28:3-14 and let God’s heart of blessing sink into your spirit.)
Then God reminded me of the rainbow he showed Noah after the flood and how God promised to never destroy the earth again by flood. The Lord said to me, “I am not the destroyer. I am your Restorer and Protector. I protect you with my goodness and mercy.” Thank you, Lord! God has protection, restoration, redemption, hope, blessing, goodness, kindness, mercy, grace, and forgiveness for us at ALL TIMES. His affections for us do not change like our affections change for one another depending on whether or not someone has been kind or unkind to us. I was reading an article this week, and the author said, when we do something that displeases God, we do not break relationship with Him, but we break our fellowship. That was such a comfort to me. God does not break relationship with us or excommunicate us just because we take a wrong step. We may walk away from Him with our actions or words for a moment, but He continues to seek after us and pursue us with His great love. He does not cut off relationship with us. He always pours His goodness upon us. We have to settle in our hearts that He sees our end from our beginning, and He is always watching out for us. He knows what’s coming, and He is always guarding our future for us. Even in His admonition or correction of us, He only does what is going to bring us into open fields of blessing. He always wants what is best for us, and does everything He can to get it to us. He always holds us in His big, safe, powerful hands.
So this week, dear ones, look for all the ways big and small in which the Lord blesses you, and remember to bless Him back with your appreciation for all the little, beautiful ways in which He talks to you and shares His love with you every day.
He is our joy and blessing,
Pastor Lisa Marie