Who Qualifies You For God’s Blessings?
There aren’t enough words to express the way our lives have changed since Steve, myself and our girls stopped believing we are blessed because of what we do and began to believe that we are blessed because of Jesus alone. Let me say right from the start, this doesn’t mean we don’t give because we absolutely love to give and even more so from this new covenant mindset of knowing we don’t “have to” in order to qualify ourselves.
We don’t look to our giving as the reason that we are qualified for God‘s blessings. The McCollom Family will never again say, “Ahhh, we just received that blessing because of what we did.” Nope! We now say, “We are blessed because of Jesus. We are blessed because of what HE did for us!”
I kid you not, since the day we stopped believing we could qualify ourselves and looked to Jesus alone as our qualification we have seen major fruit come as a result of having our eyes on Jesus in this area. People need to know this good news!
Ask yourself today, “Am I trying to qualify myself for God’s blessings in any area of my life? Finances, Healing, Promotion and on and on the list goes.” This is a critical question because if we are depending on our on works/self efforts/Bible reading/obedience/giving or good deeds to qualify us then we are not depending on Jesus.
It’s either all Jesus or it’s not and the Good News of the Gospel is, it is all Jesus!
And guess what happens when we believe it? We end up doing all the other stuff as a natural result of our heart being changed from understanding what Jesus did for us.
When I used to think my own works/self efforts/Bible reading/ obedience/ giving and good deeds were the reasons I was being blessed by God, who do you think got the credit whenever something good happened in my life? I sure didn’t give it to Jesus, I can tell you that.
Now that I depend on Jesus and His finished work on the cross as the reason I am being blessed by God, who do you think gets the credit whenever something good happens in my life?
Jesus does. Only Jesus!
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all His glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.
Do you see it. When you read the Bible through the lens of grace you see that Paul didn’t pray that they would get their act together and start behaving better. He prayed for knowledge and spiritual wisdom and understanding. But knowledge, spiritual wisdom and understanding about what? How to behave better? No! Knowledge, spiritual wisdom and understanding about the person of Jesus Christ!
Then what happens? Look what verse 10 starts with!!! “Then” (when your eyes are fixed on Jesus) you will naturally end up living in a way that honors and pleases the Lord and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.
Oh my gosh, this is what we need to be teaching people. We need to be setting their eyes on Jesus. It’s the only way to true freedom! I’m literally crying while typing this because there is so much power in the Good News.
Verse 11 tells us that Paul prayed that the Church would be strengthened with God’s glorious power. He did not pray that we would pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and try harder to have the endurance and patience we need.
By the way, have you ever tried that? If you have, because I sure have, you know it doesn’t work. But what does work is us continually being strengthened by His glorious power.
And look at verse 12, friends! Always thanking the Father because He is the one who has enabled us to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light. And if you look verse 12 up in the New American Standard Bible it says “Giving thanks to the Father, Who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.”
And let me just clarify further, that the phrase “live in the light” is referring to those who have their eyes fixed on the light, which is Jesus, as their qualification!
Once again, it’s all about Jesus!
If you have not yet made Jesus your Savior and received the wonderful joy that His finished work on the cross has provided for you to live in, please visit my page here titled Jesus In The Driver’s Seat. On this page I explain the good news of the gospel and you will have the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, making Jesus your Savior! Jesus loves you and His arms are wide open!
Sandra McCollom
Hello Sandra – thanks for this blog. I am taking my time meditating on it because in my experience i was not tithing and God told me to. However i think the main thing is WHY we are we tithing or giving? Still working my way thru that one. Things are still changing. I have yet to find out if this is me or God working thru me but i think it must be the latter. Yes things have always been complicated in my life LOL but i am getting there thanks to people like you. I just have to… Read more »
Linda, I’m so glad you brought this up! You hit the nail on the head when you said it’s the “why” behind what we are doing. I would never tell someone who feels led by the Spirit to tithe not to tithe because I believe we are to give led by the Spirit in the new covenant and I know many other people who feel led to specifically give 10% like you. The important thing, and I can tell you picked it up in this post, is that we are not looking to anything “we do” as our qualification for… Read more »
Thank you Sandra!