God's Blessings in Everyday Living

God is good. All the time God is good. Oh how much God has blessed me!!! I could never thank Him enough for all that He has provided for me....The best family ever! Awesome friends! The list goes on....I don't deserve any of the things God has blessed me with, but yet He chooses to bless me because He loves His children.

God has really revealed to me how much that I should see Him through my everyday life. In mundane tasks, I can see God. When I work at my part-time job, I can work my hardest for the Lord. I can be cheerful to customers because Christ gave me joy. I can have a strong work ethic because I am working for the Lord and not for men.

Oftentimes I always complain about homework. I love college, just not the homework part. Why am I not always thankful that I have the opportunity to go to college? That I have the capacity to learn and hunger for knowledge. Why do I not remember when I am studying long hours for a test that I am not alone? I don't have to drown in self-pity because I have a long paper to write. I can use my writing to glorify Him. Every detail of my life reveals God working in me. Yet, I am often too busy to even notice.

Why is it that I don't see God in every single detail of my life? I tend to think He only cares about the "big" stuff. NO! God is showing me that He cares about every tiny detail of my life! He orchestrates everything....so why do we think He doesn't care about every single detail of our lives?

Today, I had to give a 5-7 min speech in my Communications class. I was really rather nervous at first. I am not a huge talker in front of people I don't know. For those of you that do know me personally, that's probably a shock. Just kidding. ;) Anyways, I don't like speaking in front of people and when I do, I talk too fast and my hands shake. Well I decided to give my speech about Time Management. I included things about how God is my first priority so the biggest amount of my time should be spent on what is most important to me. I also included a Bible verse in my speech and talked about how that God has given us these days on earth to glorify Him. I want to use my days effectively and quit wasting time. God is continuing to show me alot about not wasting my life.

When three o'clock came and Communications started, I was really rather nervous. I prayed that God would help me and a peace washed over me. I was no longer nervous at all. A few people gave their speeches and then a Baptist preacher got up and gave a speech about the Bible! He explained how the Bible is a road map for life and how it will never let you down. He shared Scriptures and invited people to read the Bible everyday. How awesome is that at a secular college! What shocked me again was that right after him a youth minister got up and gave a speech about knowing the Lord. He shared Scriptures and encouraged people to get saved! Remember how I said these were 5-7 minute speeches...My lost friends in that class got to hear the gospel for 10-14 minutes. Some people I know in that class might not ever step foot in a church....yet here they were at class hearing about Christ. I couldn't stop praising God for how he works!!! It is just incredible!! I got up and gave my speech next and I felt an overwhelming peace. I wasn't nervous, and I easily talked 5-7 minutes. It just showed me once again that I should God is in control and He is absolutely amazing.

God really is showing me that He is there with me at all times. When I experience joy, He is smiling. When I am suffering for Him, He wipes my tears away. Every single day, no matter what I am doing He is with me. For example, when I babysat tonight and played school with the five year old, I saw God's joy in him. His eyes gleamed with excitement over learning the numbers 11-40. If we were all that excited about learning and counted it a joy to learn! I smiled when I thought about how the baby I was watching had no worries. He would just mess my hair up and giggle. Then, he would go back to crawling and playing with his stuffed animal. If only life were so simplistic and we, as adults, didn't make things so complicated.... Children take pleasure in small things. Honestly, we shouldn't have worries either. Because we have a Savior that says, "Come here my child. Abide in me. Know me. Rest in me."

Yet, why do we struggle so hard to step back and just be still? Why is it so hard for us to trust God wholeheartedly? This abandonment for God is joy. It is experiencing the most amazing peace. It is an overwhelming sigh of relief that we don't have to have it all figured out.

"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us." -Romans 8:31-34

"But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." -Isaiah 40:31
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."- Romans 12:2

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."-Romans 8:38-39

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come." -2 Corinthians 5:17

The God-breathed Book

The Bible is for certain inspired. It is literally the very breath of God transferred to man on paper. It is His love letter to us, His guide book for life, His plan of redemption laid out, the gospel foretold, and truths conveyed in each and every word. All of Scripture is inspired by God. When we move from this belief, it is like building our house on sinking sand. How can we follow a Savior whom we don't think His Word is entirely true and profitable? Believing the Bible is truly inspired by God is based on faith, but it also has proofs backing it up.

There are different ways that people reject the inspiration of God. Most of the people I know that don't believe that God inspired the Bible, believe "parts"of the Bible are true. They don't believe God inspired them and gave them the words to write. They just think the authors wrote the books like any other author. They think of it as just their account of what happened....This belief rejects that the entire Bible is true and can lead to belief that it is instead a mixture of truth, historical documents, mistakes, and allegories.

I think that they hold to these beliefs because they can accept what they want to from the Bible. If they don't like certain verses, they can claim they weren't true. If they are able to convince themselves and everyone else that only certain parts of the Bible are true, then they can pick and choose what they want to accept. If they don't like the fact that God created the world in 6 days, then they can say that that was just an allegory and there was no possible way that God could created the world like that. Or they can justify that God may have used evolution to create the world because they don't believe in the literal interpretation of "day" in Genesis.

Feeling they are not accountable to a Holy God is another reason for rejecting the true inspiration of God. This may not be the reason for all who choose to not believe in verbal inspiration. However, ultimately that is what one can draw from not trusting the inspiration of God. In denying that every single word of the Bible is truth, it provides an escape for following God with complete obedience to His Word. No matter how one reaches the conclusion that the Bible is not the inspired Word of God, then they feel they are ultimately not accountable to God. If they don't believe He even cared enough for them to write the Bible, then how can they trust the Bible? How can they find strength to obey God's commands in Scripture if they believe "parts" of the Bible are true? How can they trust God's promises? How can they share the gospel if they can't have the confidence to know that God wrote out His plan of salvation for us?

He is the Word. He is the life. Satan is out to attack Christians and make them believe that the Bible was not the inspired word of God. If Satan can make one believe that lie, then the gospel, the plan of redemption, Creation, and every promise in the Bible becomes in one's mind nothing more than a nice story. Believing the Bible is the inspired word of God is absolutely crucial in one's walk with Christ.

2 Timothy 3:16. "All Scripture is inspired by God...." The word "inspired" literally mans, God-breathed. How incredible is that!? I can trust what God tells me in His Word about the Bible being totally inspired because I can trust God. He will never fail me. His Word speaks to me and changes my life, and I know He is changing the lives of others through His Word.

Also, the fact that He used 40 people over the course of 1500 years to pen Scripture and nothing in Scripture ever contradicted each other is proof in itself that God breathed the words he wanted to be in the Bible.

“Of the many influences that have shaped the United States into a distinctive nation and people, none may be said to be more fundamental and enduring than the Bible.” -President Ronald Reagan
“We account the scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.” -Isaac Newton
It's just absolutely crucial to our faith to know that Scripture is God-breathed. It is His love letter, His guide book for our lives, and every single word is truth. It is reliable, profitable, and is radically changing my life.