S)"5 do not provoke them, for I will not give you any of their land, even as little as a footstep because I have given Mount Seir to Esau as a possession."
Deuteronomy 2:5 (NASB)
O) The mistake that the Israelites made after their disbelief of Caleb and Joshua, was that they decided to go up and fight in the Promised Land, even though God's blessings were no longer with that generation. One of the fuels of that mistake was entitlement. They assumed that, because they were God's children, and because He'd blessed them before in war, that He'd bless them again. They were wrong. Later, in the above verse, we see that God is revealing that He actually blesses people who are not His children and we, as His children, are not allowed to interfere with that.
A) The temptation is that, as a child of God (according to 1 John 3:1), I feel like I should be able to take advantage of God's favor however I see fit and whenever I see fit. The problem, of course, is that is the attitude of a spoiled rich kid, "Do you know who my father is?!" I don't want to be a spoiled rich kid. Sometimes, if I don't receive a blessing from God of some kind (say, a new job), it's tempting to assume that the job is bad somehow. Like, "Oh, well obviously it's not God's will because that job must come with difficult hours that would be hard on my family." or some other excuse. But, I need to accept that God might give a perfectly good, perfectly pure, perfectly blessing gift to some one else. In fact, He may even bless some one who hates Him. The humbling truth is that it's none of my business whom else God decides to bless, even when I feel like it's a blessing I would like to have had. If it's not for me, even if it's for some one who ignores God (at best), I need to accept that it's still according to the will of my perfect Father, who has a perfect plan.
P) Father, You are impossibly good to me, but I never want Your blessings to spoil me. If I ever begin feeling entitled to Your blessings, especially relative to the blessings of others, then please reprove, discipline, and humble me, whichever it takes. Holy Spirit, as I continue to search to the will of the Father in every situation, reveal it to me and confirm it, so that I am not wasting my time, attention, and efforts on getting blessings that were never even meant for me. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment