When the Rubber Hits the Road // Blessed to be a Blessing, Part 5

It’s easy for someone to say, “You should be a blessing to other people.” But what if we’re too busy, or we just don’t have anything to bless other people with?  Really – then what?!!

When we talk about God’s blessing, what we discover is that it's a two sided transaction. Jesus made it really clear that when God blesses us, the whole point is that we're meant to be a blessing to other people. We are blessed to be a blessing. People sometimes ask me, "Berni, what does that mean? I mean, let’s get practical here, what does it mean for me to be a blessing to someone else?" That’s a good question.

I don't know what sort of life you lead, some people lead extremely busy lives and other people lead quiet, even lonely lives sometimes. Whichever end of the spectrum we're on, the notion of us being a blessing to other people can seem, well, kind of impossible. How could that ever be?

Throughout the program on the week, we've been talking about living out God’s blessing in our lives. God is a god of blessing, you can see that right at the beginning, Genesis, chapter 1, that story of the whole of creation. God created it all, he gave it to you and me, we are co-owners, joint owners in creation because God said, "Here it is, it's all yours, I bless you with it."

And then, just a chapter or two later, in that book of Genesis, we see Adam and Eve. God’s given them the whole garden and blessing and they've got a relationship with God and then they do the one thing that God tells them not to do, they turn their backs on God. And as a result they usher in suffering into the world. The rejection of God, the rejection of God, has consequences but still God has a heart to bless us.

We looked the other day at the prayer of Jabez, if you've missed any of these programs hop onto our website, www.adifferentperspective.org and you can listen to it again and we saw how Jabez went to God and asked God specifically for his blessing. And then Jesus puts blessing into perspective, he says it this way. He says:

Give and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap.

You can read that in Luke, chapter 6.

For with the measure that you use it will be measured to you.

You see Jesus said being blessed, and blessing other people are two sides of the one coin and if you really want to live out God’s blessing, sure go to God and ask him for his blessing and say, "Lord, bless me." And then let that blessing pour out through you to other people around you. You know when we're close to God we have so much to bless other people with.

The danger is though, that we talk in concepts and theory and not in practical realities. What does all this mean? Okay, I accept that God is a god of blessing. Okay I accept that it's a two sided transaction, in from God and out through me, but how does all that work? Can I share again how it works in my life? Over the last dozen or so years I've been walking closely, but let me say imperfectly, with Jesus in my life. I make mistakes just like you do, I have good days and bad days and I'm hoping that where I am now is much closer to God and looking much more like Jesus than it was five years ago. And I've learned about God’s blessing in two ways.

Firstly, through His Word the Bible and I thank God I have had some really good teachers, and secondly, by living it out in my life and seeing that it's actually how life is. What God and what Jesus talk about in the Bible, is actually how it happens and when Jesus promises something like:

Give and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured to you.

When Jesus says something like that, they're not just idle words, these are the words of God. He means this stuff and so what I'm sharing with you today is just my experience. You may have a different experience and other people will have different experiences but when it comes to God’s blessing pouring out through us, I only know one way to share that with you and that’s from life itself.

The one thing that makes my world go round – everything else revolves around that – is the time I spend with God each morning. Before you tell me you're too busy to spend time with God, if you're that busy then I would suggest you don't have time not to spend with God. What happens to me is that I pray and I read God’s word and He speaks to me, sometimes He gives me impressions, sometimes there's a chapter in the Bible I'm reading and it leaps out at me and I walk away from that half hour or forty five minutes or hour with a peace and a calm delight that I can't put into words.

For me it happens early in the morning because I'm a morning person and everyone else is in bed and it's a wonderful time for me. Now, okay everyone’s different, some people aren't morning people, for some it will be late at night, for others it will be on the train or on the bus, whatever. But when we carve out that time with Him, He shows up and honours that and delights us, and deals with the things in us that He wants to deal with, and puts his finger on the issues or the hurt or the sin that he needs to deal with that leads us gently and firmly forward. And the biggest part of the blessing of God in my life flows in through those times.

First, absolutely first and foremost it's about having a relationship with Jesus Christ and then during the day things happen, difficult situations or a tension, or I just feel a gentle prompting of the Spirit, instead of cursing the person the Spirit of God helps me to bless them, instead of judging them I pray for them. Now for me that stuff doesn't happen if I'm not spending time regularly with God. And every now and then I notice God tee's up a divine appointment with someone who needs his blessing and he chooses me to deliver that blessing, and sometimes I'm not even aware that it's happening.

There was a man I was dealing with last year and didn't believe in God. Tough negotiation to get our programs on that particular radio station, it was just not a comfortable time at all. And I prayed my way through it and I did it and we moved on. And so at the end of last year I sent him an email just to say, "thank you", and he sent me an email back praising God, he'd given his life to Christ. It was just the way the whole interaction happened and the way God used me. I had no idea but Jesus did and the programs that he was putting on his station impacted on him and his family.

I always feel like I'm a bystander when that happens. You know God’s up to something, the Holy Spirit is moving and I was clueless but he used it anyway. Can I encourage you to take an inventory of the blessings, the gifts, the skills, the money, the possessions, the time that God has given you. What blessings has God dropped in your lap that you can bless other people with? Everyone’s got them, maybe you've got to be creative but everyone has them.

I was talking to an elderly widow, a pensioner, a grandmother and this is a woman of humble means and she said, "What do I have, I don't have anything to give?" And I talked a little while and it turns out her kids were grown up and they had families of their own and they were working so hard and they were so busy. And I said, "What about just spending some time with your grandkids? All this time that you have, time where you're lonely and just go in blessing your kids by taking the grandkids off their hands for a few hours, doesn't have to be big but I have to tell you, your children who are now working hard and have a mortgage and they're struggling under the pressure would be so blessed if you just took the grandkids off their hands for a little while."

It's not rocket science is it? Let me get right in your face. You and I have so many things that we can bless other people with but here's the rub, it's not always convenient, we don't always feel like it. But when we take the blessings that God has given through Jesus Christ and we share them around in little practical ways, it magnifies God. Just remember the words of Jesus:

Give and it will be given to you. A good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure that you use, it will be measured to you.