Blessing

John Piper, a man who calls himself a "Christian Hedonist", teaches that "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him". Lets pause and think about that for a moment. In layman terms, another way to interpret this is that "God is truly glorified when He is more than enough for us/He is all we desire/things go wrong and we do not get what we want we still praise Him with our all.

This kind of teaching I believe would not sit well with many today. Because we live in a world where is all about our wants. We want things and we want them now. We live in an age of instant messaging, fast food, email, where everything needs to be served up right to us in a split second. But that is not how God works. I believe that God is not out to harm anyone, He wants to provide for us, He wants to heal us, He wants to bless us etc etc. When God comes through for us we all give praise, saying great is the Lord for He has done so and so and so. But let me ask you, what if he does not? Many treat God as if He wants Santa Claus, many pray with a kind of mentality that God owes me this miracle or if God truly loved me He wouldnt do this to me.



But allow me to throw out something for you to ponder, wouldn't God be more glorified if in the face of travesty, in the face of trials, in our lacking, if we could lift up our hands and give Him our praise and say, God is more than enough for me. Isn't that true glory onto God? It is to me. On one hand, God's miraculous works will indeed show that He is truly an incredible God, that is God glorifying Himself, but through us, God's glory can be seen is when we are truly happy in Him, we are satisfied in Him. Imagine you had nothing. Like literally nothing. Not a house to live in, when we dont have the support of family and friends or their company, when we dont even have a shirt on our backs! Think about it, in that kind of situation, would you still praise God and say, He is more than enough.



Let me say this first, I believe God gives us enough to meet our needs and not our wants. Which are 2 totally different things. You must admit one thing, that God provides sufficiently for us to live. Lets look at Job as an example. Many people see that Job lost his family, his wealth, his security, he lost ALL his material things and everything that was dear to him. But notice one thing, Job still had his 3 friends. His friends still came from afar to counsel him, to listen to him complain, and although they were not very good friends, they were still company nonetheless.



Now the point I want to make is, I want to discuss what I believe, is true blessing.



Philippians 3:1 (New Living Translation)
1 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith.



Psalm 16:11 (New Living Translation)
11 You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.



Let me make something clear, I am not saying that having material things in abundance is wrong, but I am saying wanting them is. Making them a priority is. Putting the gifts above the Giver is. With all sincerity, I believe that God will always enable us to be well equipped in life, that we have enough. God is a practical God as well. For instance, if you were ministering to people who lived in an area which consisted of rich and famous, you wouldn't go in rags and a broken down car, because they wouldn't respect you or listen to you. On the other hand, you wouldn't wear a Hugo Boss suit to a poor village as well would you? I believe whatever it is in life, God will provide enough to meet your needs.



Be christian or not, we share the same stage. We live in the same world as people who do not believe, people who do not know Jesus. Just like everyone else, we all have fears. Insecurities. Doubts. Difficulties. Trials. True blessing, is not that we live without all these adversities, but it is the peace and serenity that we can face all these things, it is the promise of His presence. That is what I seek. I do not seek to be rich beyond my wildest dreams, nor do I hope to be living in rags, but whatever it is I have to go through, I seek His presence. I am not avoiding pain or hardship, but I want my Jesus by my side as I go through all that. That my friends, is TRUE BLESSING. Not the money in your account, not the car in your garage, not the woman in your life, not anything. Those are awesome things, but that is not true blessing, those are merely what I call a cherry on the ice cream, important thing is we still have the ice cream.


This is what I want to do. I do not want to go out in life trying to make it big. I want to go out and make a difference. A life of significance. A life that is pleasing unto God. It is nice to have a lot of nice things, but what is the point? What can you actually take to heaven with you? Can you bring your bmw and tell God, God look at my bmw. Would he be impressed? I would think not haha. What you can bring is your life, and of course your loved ones. Those are the things that matter. I will give you a simple analogy. Lets say there was this man, his name was Robert. Robert was a filthy rich guy who lived in the 1800s. How many people who actually say today, wow I wish I was rich like Robert. No! Noone will remember him after a while! But look at Martin Luther King, Mother Therasa, Ghandi, Jesus Christ. These people lived well before some of us, but we still remember them today. Were they remembered for being incredibly rich or comfortable etc?

Let us look at scriptures that explain themselves.

Proverbs 30:8-9 (New Living Translation)
8 First, help me never to tell a lie. Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs. 9 For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.

Galatians 6:8-10 (New Living Translation)
8 Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit. 9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up. 10 Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith.

Matthew 6:19-34 (New International Version)
19"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

22"The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. 23But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

24"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

The last scripture speaks volumes. Jesus Himself said that. So brothers and sisters, I hope you understand what true blessing is and that we seek that and only that. God is truly most glorified, when we are satisfied in him.