Spring has sprung and apart from our seasonal allergies on the attack, I’m so excited for the beauty of the trees and flowers, as well as for the beautiful, warm sunshine. Here in East Tennessee, we have the Dogwood Arts Festival. This year the festival is from April twenty-second through the twenty-fourth, so if you’re local you must Google the event and try to find some fun way to participate.
Another way April is well-known is for its showers, as in, “April showers bring May flowers.” It’s those showers that I want to talk about this month. No, I’m not saying you need a bath, unless you do. . . But I do want to explore some of the ways God showers us with mercy, grace, love, and blessings, etc.
We don’t always feel like we’re being showered upon, nor do we always see the evidence of those showers, but I hope to convince you that you are indeed drenched with all God has for you. I had lunch with a friend recently and she was talking about how sometimes she feels horrible about herself and her behavior. She feels like her sins are slapping her in the face and that God must be disappointed with her.
I couldn’t help but remind her that when God looks at her all He sees is Jesus. So, all He sees in her is perfection. That is how He sees you – as His perfectly loved son or daughter. Beyond that, we also have a hard time believing that God wants to pour blessings out on us, but He does! He doesn’t withhold blessing; that would make Him an evil God and He is nothing but good.
Let me prove to you that God loves to shower you with any and everything He can! Let’s begin with this one question: “So why would I fear the future?”
Only goodness and tender love pursue me all the days of my life. Then afterward, when my life is through, I’ll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you! (Psalm 23:6 The Passion Translation, TPT).
Did you hear that? Only goodness and tender love are pursuing you, chasing you down, following you. The word pursue in verse six is the Hebrew word radap, pronounced raw-daf and it means, “To chase down, run after, to follow after, to attend closely upon.” (see https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h7291/kjv/wlc/0-1/). As you can see this is not a passive word. God is very intentional as He pursues us with goodness and love.
There is another verse that speaks about God supplying everything we need. “I am convinced that my God will fully satisfy every need you have, for I have seen the abundant riches of glory revealed to me through Jesus Christ!” (Philippians 4:19 TPT).
Those abundant riches are the storehouse of all God has for us, and His riches fill every spiritual, emotional, and physical need we have. He’s not a miser either: withholding what we need until we behave correctly so He can reward us. How do I know that? Because the riches are revealed to us through Jesus Christ. When we received Jesus Christ, we also received all the riches from the Father.
Are you convinced yet? If not, let me give you one more piece of evidence toward you fully believing God is chasing you down to bless you! “Yes, God is more than ready to overwhelm you with every form of grace, so that you will have more than enough of everything —every moment and in every way. He will make you overflow with abundance in every good thing you do.” (2 Corinthians 9:8 TPT).
Look at that language: Overwhelm, every form, everything, every moment, in every way, overflow, and abundance. Those are rich words! God means business when He says He wants to bless us! So many of us have had a wrong view of God, either because our fathers were stern, our church leadership was stern, or we simply had wrong expectations.
However, I promise you, cross my heart, that God loves you in such an abundant way and that He wants you to have everything that is His. He isn’t keeping anything away from you. Remember that game Keep Away? There was one person in the middle, and you tossed a ball over and around them, to keep them from getting the ball. That is not the game God is playing with us!
He is tossing the ball straight toward us and cheering us on, telling us we can catch anything He tosses our way. Here! Catch this! Woohoo! You got it! For those of you who have children, or maybe nieces and nephews, aren’t you so excited to bless them? Don’t you love giving them your time, attention, and gifts then seeing them smile? There is nothing in the world like seeing another person smile.
God enjoys that same smile. So, now that you’re fully on board with this blessing thing, please thank God for all He’s given you. He’s made you smile; now let’s make Him smile.
I want to invite you to our next prayer call. We’ll be meeting by Zoom on Tuesday, April 26th from 6:30 to 7:30. Please save that time on your calendar and I’ll send the Zoom link closer to the time. To receive email communications, click here and sign up!
