Sunday, October 3, 2010

Counting My Blessings!

In my small group The Good and Beautiful God by James Bryan Smith, this week's chapter was on God is Trustworthy. What an eye opening experience for me. I have so much to learn from Jesus and how He loves His Abba Father. He trusts Him with everything, even the process of the cross.  He knew God's LOVE for Him because He had always proven to be with Him and knew what was best for Him. Not His will but Abba Father's be done.
JESUS TRUSTED ABBA!

We can learn a lot about our Abba Father from Jesus as He reveals God's nature in Matthew 6:9-13. God is a good and loving Father. The Lord's Prayer has such an example of how Jesus knew Abba Father.

Here are six characteristics of Abba Father according to that passage alone:

1. God is present/nearby; 
2. God is pure/holy; 
3. God is powerful;
4. God is caring;
5. God is forgiving/pardons; and
6. God is our protector.


NOTHING CAN HAPPEN TO US THAT GOD CANNOT REDEEM!!!

At each chapter's end we have soul training exercise and this week's so impressed me on counting my blessings. I was to list 10 things God has blessed me with (anything you love, have been blessed with). It also encourages you to also make a list of what God has done for you and to do both daily, let it be an ongoing list(s).  How important is it that we see God's widespread mercies!!

I want to encourage you to do your own list of blessings and what God has done for you. I want to end with this quote from the book by musician and author David Crowder to meditate on. It was so deep to me.

"When good is found and we embrace it with abandon, we embrace the Giver of it... Every second is an opportunity to praise. There is a choosing to be made. A choosing at each moment. This is the Praise Habit. Finding God moment by revelatory moment, in the scared and the mundane, in the valley and on the hill, in triumph and tragedy, and living praise erupting because of it. That is what we were made for."

Be amazed by Abba Father ... He is Trustworthy!!