Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, July 18th. How much praise comes from your lips when life feels confusing and unstable? In today's podcast, let's discover how God can transform painful circumstances into powerful blessings. What determines the measure of God's blessing in your life. In other words, somebody says, Well, you just pray for God to bless them, but then He will, not necessarily.
What determines the measure of God's blessing? And that's the title of this message, The Measure of Your Blessing. Does he bless you a little bit?
Some, sorta, or a whole lot. What determines that?
So I want you to turn to the 81st Psalm, and when you first read this, you'll think, well, How do you get that out of this?
Well, it's all here.
So let's think about the ways, for example. and what the requirements are.
So I want you to look at this passage of Scripture. And notice what's happening. He says, I relieve his shoulder of the burden. Hands freed from the basket, speaking of the nation of Israel in captivity. They were Hebrews then, not the nation of Israel yet.
You called in trouble, I rescued you. I answered you in the hiding place of thunder, proved you at the waters of Meribah, which is a time when they were complaining about their food and water and so forth, and giving God a hard time and asking the question: is God among us or is He not?
So He's reminding us here of. their captivity, how he rescued them, how he did what he did in their behalf.
So The issue here is this. How do you measure God's blessing? And the first thing I want to notice is this, and that is this. It's measured primarily. By our recognition of God as the source of every blessing.
If I don't see Him as the source of the blessing, then how can I expect him to bless me? If I don't see him as the source, then things that come my way that are good are either happenstance, an act of fate, or I have no explanation at all. And so As a result of that, for example, What happens is we must see it in some other source. If you want a full measure of God's blessing, you have to recognize who He is. And here's what you remember.
In the Old Testament, when they walked in obedience to God, the blessing of God flowed in their life. When they walked in disobedience to God, would not listen to Him, what happened? They suffered the consequences. The same thing happens today. The principles of God never change.
He's a good God and He has the best, the finest of the wheat, the sweetest of the honey. He says, I want to satisfy you because listen, a child of God walking in the will of God, listening to God, doing the things of God, obeying God is an awesome testimony of the reality of God and a person's life. When we do otherwise, and then we expect God to bless us.
So, requirement number one: that is, I have to see and focus on the fact. Believe with all my heart that God is the source of the blessings, all the blessings of our life that come our way.
So, and if you'll notice the response here, he says, Israel would not walk in my ways. And so he says, I gave them over. To the stubbornness of their heart, their consequences in failing. To keep our focus upon God. And one of the primary consequences is what?
I miss the blessing. There's the second thing I want you to notice here, and that's this. And that is not only our recognition, but our willingness to listen to it.
Now when you think about it, it's pretty simple.
Well, how can I expect God to bless me when I don't listen to Him? You know what you do? Here's what you do: you just short-circuit His blessing. I'm going to do the talking. God, I'm making my order.
I'm expecting you to bless me today. You can just forget that. because he's not going to answer that. He says they wouldn't listen to me.
Sodas turned them over to the stubbornness of their heart. If I want the full measure of God's blessing. My focus must be upon him and see him as the source. And secondly, I must learn to listen to him. When your children, for example, and they were growing up and You are teaching them to listen to you.
And how many times would you say to them, now are you listening? And you, as a parent, when you said it, you could say it like this. Are you listening? Gentle. Are you listening to me as a little harsh?
And sometimes we probably all have said that, are you listening to me? And when you knew they weren't listening, It became irritating or You think, well, if you're not going to listen, then let's just forget it. And so with God Our willingness to listen to Him is extremely important. But there's a third thing. And that is Not only Focusing.
not only listening to him. But likewise the whole issue of obedience. Listen, obey Him. Listen to what he says. He says, Oh, if you would listen to me.
Let there be no strange God among you. Nor shall you worship any other foreign God. Don't let something get into your life that's more important than I am. I'm the Lord who brought you out of Egyptian bondage, not some brazen God that you've made. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.
But my people wouldn't listen to me. And Israel did not obey me. Listen. What naturally follows failing to listen is failing to obey. If you don't, for example, listen to him, you're not going to obey him.
Now, think about this. When you and I are not walking in the will of God, we're walking in whose will? Our will. When we're saying no to the will of God, we're acting stubbornly. When we act stubborn, what we are doing is deliberately, willfully disobeying God in some area of our life and then think that we have the gall to come to God and ask Him to bless us in some way when we are not listening to Him, we are disobeying Him and not focused on Him.
People wonder, well, why doesn't God answer my prayer? I just told you. Why doesn't God bless me? There it is in black and white ABC. Not focused on him, not listening to him, not obeying him, expecting him to bless me.
You want God to bless you? The measure of your blessing is determined by your response to a loving God who's promised the best, prepared the best, provided the best for you to get it. Listen, God's blessings oftentimes come in shaded fashion. Shadowed fashion. We don't get the full impact until we make the decision to listen to Him, obey Him, and then when we obey Him, we think, oh my goodness, thank God didn't make that choice.
Praise God and then make that choice. God's choices are the best and it's interesting to me. Challenging to me to think about how many people who name the name of Jesus, who pray to God. who call themselves Christians, their focus is not on Him, they're not listening to Him, and they're not obeying Him and expecting God to answer their prayer. It's absurd when you think about it.
And if your children acted that way, you'd think, what in the world is good? You need to be taken to the woodshed.
Well, that's the reason God's got so many of His people in the woodshed, so to speak, and that is they're not being blessed. They want to blame somebody else for it? Blame God or blame somebody else? Why isn't God blessing me? If God was a fair God, He'd do thus and so.
God doesn't claim to be fair. He claims to be, listen, good, righteous, holy, just.
Something may not look fair to us, perfectly right in the eyes of God. And so somebody says, Well, now, wait a minute now, wait a minute, I have a little question about this. You're telling me that God's measure of blessing depends upon those things. That's correct.
Well, now what about these people Who are so blessed and they're ungodly.
Well, let's use the right terminology, they're not blessed. They have manipulated their circumstances. To the point. That here's what we do. We are quick to judge a person's success or happiness or joy in life because they got lots of money.
Oh, because they have lots of popularity and prestige. You know what, you have all the money in the world, all the prestige and popularity, and be absolutely empty because there's so many people like that. They're not happy, they're not satisfied, they have tangible things. They're worried about losing that. And so, if you look at their life, and so sometimes Christians say, well, if God were the kind of God you say He is, you know what?
He wouldn't be blessing them the way He's blessing them. And look at me.
Well, I'd simply say, if you do what God tells you, you get your eyes off them, get them on Him, and you know what things had changed.
Now watch this carefully.
Somebody says, well, how do you explain that? Two ways, very simple. Number one, Satan is willing and ready. to do whatever is necessary if it's to Give and provide some kind of riches or wealth or success, anything to keep the ungodly in his camp. Listen.
He'll give you enough to keep you satisfied in his camp. Secondly, the second thing about it is this. If if he can keep you in his camp, and send enough good things your way. What happens is, it causes weak believers and other people to say, well, look what he's doing. You know what?
He's not a Christian. She's not a Christian. And look how well they're getting along.
So then you get deceived.
Somebody says, oh, wait a minute now. There's a passage in Romans. What about that passage? Look in the second chapter of Romans. Because This is when I wish we had an opportunity to preach and then give you about an hour to ask questions because sometimes what I have to do is answer the questions, I have to read in your mind that you're sitting out there thinking.
So I've just read this one.
Alright, Romans chapter 2, listen to what Paul said about this very question. Here's what he said. He's talking to his Jewish brethren. Here's what he says. Verse 4 of Romans 2.
Do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and forbearance, of tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
Now, watch this carefully. It has to do with what we're talking about.
Somebody says, well, how has God blessed so-and-so? God says in His word, He will be kind. And he will allow Good things in a person's life for the primary specific purpose of getting their attention in order to lead them to repentance and confession of their sin and acceptance of Christ as their Savior. He knows exactly.
Now, watch this carefully. He knows exactly who to use that on. And he knows who Who not to use it on? And he listened, and it's not forever. It is only for a portion of time because he says, But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath, revelation of the righteous judgment of God.
He says, You know what? God is patiently allowing good things into your life for the purpose of repentance toward Him, but. The wrath of God is stored up for you. And this is what's going to happen if you don't do anything. and respond correctly.
Now, let's think about this for a moment. God works in all of our lives one of two ways. He gets some people's attention. brings them to obedience. Let's take the believer first of all.
Let's say the believer he works in all of our hearts in one of two ways. For example, in some people's life, here's what he does. To get their attention. To bring them back into His will, here's what He will do. He will just heap good things on their life.
And their response is, oh God, how could I be disobedient to you? Look what you're doing for me. And genuine repentance is the result. On the other hand, you may be seated beside somebody else. God's not going to do that.
He's going to send them sickness, suffering, heartache, trouble, trial, you know what, everything, imagine why? Because he knows the human heart. He knows in whose life good things brings them to repentance. And he knows in whose life all of that would just make them head out in the wrong direction. And he knows that he must bring down discipline and judgment upon their life.
So you and I can now look around and say, well, Here's what God's doing over here for these people, and look how he's blessing them. They have no real peace. Listen, when you're not right with God, you don't have any peace, you don't have any real joy, you don't have any security. You have no satisfaction and there's a big emptiness in your life and no matter what they tell you, deep down inside there's this awesome sense of uncertainty about death and eternity. They may look like They're doing well.
But if you've noticed, and if you've lived long enough, you'll notice over time these people who are so popular and got so much money and so much this and so much that, when it comes down later on in life, what happens? All hell is broken through in their life. It looks like the walls have caved in, tops caved in, they've lost this, lost that, lost their marriage, lost their money, and on and on and on it goes. God's people get deceived by Satan's lie because he's got them in his camp. And so, some people, he just wants to hold them there to deceive God's people.
If the focus isn't on Him, not listening to Him, Not obeying Him. How can I ask God? to give me his blessing. You can't. I mean, you can say it.
But deep down in your heart, You can't.
Now, there's another thing I want you to notice, and that's this. And that is, I want you to come to an illustration here. That um came out of just an experience in my life. One day I walked in the bedroom at my house where I used to live and it was on the second floor. I looked happened to look out the window and there's a big pine right probably no more than about 15 feet from the window.
And the lightning had struck it, and there was a big crevice in it. And so, right in that crevice was this bird nest.
Well I got so excited because there were three little baby birds in there, so I ran, got my camera, got the biggest lens I could get so I get real close. And so sure enough, Um Before long here come Mother Bird. And uh she had A big juicy earthworm. In our mouth. And what happened was, before I saw the mother bird, all of a sudden, those baby birds.
Mouth wide open. You know, while they were expecting something, there were three of them. And so when I think about that, listen to what he says in this passage. He says I'm the Lord your God. who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. So If I am going to experience God's blessing in my life, I have to have expectation. I'm expecting a blessing. Expect it. I'm looking for it.
I'm trusting God. I'm believing God. For his blessing in my life, you don't have an expectation, you're not gonna get anything. Those baby birds, I probably was there for about an hour or so as the motherbird kept coming and going, coming on where she got all those worms, but she seemingly knew exactly where the pot was because she kept bringing them back. And listen, every time she was getting close, their mouths flew wide open.
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. Those baby birds anticipated, they expected to be fed by mother bird. And they weren't disappointed. How many believers wake up every morning? With a negative attitude, thinking about what kind of day is this going to be.
Think about waking up anticipating. Expecting God to bless you with His best that day. You say, Well, how do I know He's going to? That's not the issue. The issue is anticipated, expected.
If you expect the full measure of God's blessing in your life, Then what happens? Not only must your focus be upon Him as the source, and you're listening to Him and you're obeying Him, you're anticipating, you're expecting it to happen. Why not wake up on Monday morning or whatever morning it may be, anticipating God to show Himself strong in your life in that day? and to bless you, that is to express His goodness towards you and His kindness towards you and make you a success that day at whatever God's calling you, why not do it positively?
Well, here's what he says. Open your mouth wide now and fill it. If I don't expect it, Then God's not going to cram it down my throat. For example, the baby birds are smarter than we are. When they see the mother bird, They don't just close their mouths, and Mother Bird doesn't have to pick their mouths open and jam it in.
You know what? Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. And notice what he says. He doesn't say, just open your mouth wide. And he doesn't say, I'll give you a few scraps.
He said, I will fill it. Think about that. God says I will fill it. I'm going to satisfy you. I'll never get up from a spiritual meal without having the capacity to be satisfied if you're willing to eat it.
It'd be like coming to that smorgasbord and looking at it and thinking, Man, I love steak, I love chicken, I love ham, I love all these vegetables of stringed beans and turnip greens and black-eyed peas. And you know what I'm thinking about. And uh All the good things, turnip greens, you name it, all these things, and looking at it and saying, Oh, that looks fantastic, and I'm starving to death, and walking away. We anticipate it. If I want God to bless me, I have to expect it.
One last thing. and that is how to make preparation for it. that if I want God to bless me, I have to prepare for the blessing. If I don't prepare for it, it's not going to happen.
Now, go back to the birds. Listen to what he says. He says, I'm the Lord your God, who brought you from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. It isn't enough.
to anticipate it. It isn't enough for the birds, for example. They didn't just... Sat there. As a bird, But they were prepared.
They opened their mouth In other words. The baby birds had a responsibility as much as a motherbird. The motherbird's responsibility to provide. The baby birds' responsibility was to open their mouth to receive. She could have filled that nest up full of worms.
and they'd have starved to death and died if they'd not opened their mouth. What we do is, we don't listen, we don't anticipate it, we don't expect it, and we don't get prepared for it. Do you know when you ask God for something, ask yourself the question: now, what kind of preparation do I need to make? in order to receive God's blessing. And oftentimes he will show you.
For example, if he's giving you a new direction for your life, He is going to show you, listening carefully, he is going to show you something or some things you need to do to get ready for what he's about to do in your life. You want God's full blessing? You want him to intervene in your life? The measure of our blessing from Him is determined by us, our faith in Him. who he is, listening to him.
believing him, that is obeying him. and anticipating it. and getting ready for the blessing. Thank you for listening to part two of The Measure of Your Blessing. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org.
This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
