Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing — grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God. Joel 2:14
Just yesterday, I was teaching my middle school Sunday class and we talked about how some things are up to God. The context of the discussion was about Jesus healing the leper; see Matthew 8 and Luke 5. We talked about how the sick man said to Jesus, “if you are willing” (to which Jesus replied, “I am willing”…that actually means “God wills it to be so). The man had free will and trusted Jesus. Jesus, who also has free but divine will, then loved and helped him.
Who knows? Today Jesus may do the same thing with you or me.
That’s the thing about freely believing in the Lord. We can’t fully predict what He will do or say. All we can know is that He will do what is best for His Kingdom, meaning He will do what is best for us. What’s best may be a blessing. Or what’s best may be to let us endure so that our faith might grow stronger, and encourage others, and that the episode may reveal itself to be a different kind of unexpected blessing. It may even hurt.
Jesus doesn’t force us to believe in Him; we are free to believe or not. Yet, whether we believe or not, who knows how Jesus may use each day to reveal some new miracle?
That’s all the more reason to believe, then live each day fully. To live each moment that God gives us as if it might be our last. To bathe in accepting the forgiveness only He gives. To fully love Him and share His love with others through being loving, joyful, peaceful, kind and other ways that His Spirit would move us. To offer thanks and repentance and praise for all the ways He helps and sustains us even when it hurts.
Even when He doesn’t have to but chooses to love and help us anyway.
We only have a few more weeks in this session of our middle school series, then they’ll break for Christmas. Hopefully we’ll resume in January. It has been a blessing to be able to teach the kids. I’m in the third consecutive year of doing so, and my heart gets fuller every day knowing maybe I’m helping them hear Godly things they’ll use all their lives. Whether they know it or not, God has used them to bless my life far more than I’ve been able to bless them. Who knows how HE will bless us next?
For more reading: Jeremiah 26:3, Jeremiah 31:14, Amos 5:15, Jonah 1:6, Jonah 3:9, Haggai 2:19, Zechariah 8:13, Malachi 3:10, Matthew 8:2-3, Luke 5:12, Joel 2:15
Lord, all my praise to You for how You choose to bless us, even when we don’t deserve it. Thank You.
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