The richest blessings of God

I get it.

I get why the Jews rejected Christ as their Messiah.

Throughout the Old Testament, God showed up for His people working miracles and wonders on their behalf. To them, when all was well, when life was prosperous, they were blessed by God.

Enter Jesus.

Jesus wasn’t rich with earthly wealth (the way He blessed the Jews in the Old Covenant).

Jesus wasn’t a grand, earthly king. He didn’t fit the picture in the Jews’ minds of what a Messiah should look like, should be, how He should act.

Jesus associated with the “unclean,” the Gentiles. Every good Jew knew that only they were God’s chosen people. All others were not God’s people.

And that was true in the Old Testament, before Jesus arrived on the scene and opened the door for all to come to know God, to belong to God, to be His people.

When the Jews were the only chosen of God, they were special. They were “it” in God’s eyes. So I imagine this poked at their pride a bit when we Gentiles were now considered just as chosen as they. We are grafted into God’s chosen ones when we belong to Christ. When a branch is grafted into a tree, it becomes just like all the other branches, belonging to the tree, growing from the tree. When a child is adopted by someone who is not their birth mother, that child now belongs to their new mother just as if she gave birth to him or her.

This is exactly how we Gentiles can now belong to God. The Jews rejected Jesus (God knew they would do this and they were an unwitting part of God’s Master Plan). So Jesus “branched out” to save and redeem the Gentiles. Under His New Covenant, all are welcome into His plan and Kingdom. Anyone can belong to God now, thanks to Jesus and what He accomplished for us on the cross.

So we thank God that the Jews rejected Jesus so that everyone else stood a fighting chance!

Jesus was homeless. He had no money. When it was time for Him to pay taxes, God provided the funds through the belly of a fish! So Jesus obeyed the laws of man as well as God. He always did the right thing.

Jesus did not fit the picture of the Jews’ picture of wealth, prosperity, stature, and social standing. After all, that’s how you know you belong to God, right? When you are blessed more than the non-chosen in this life.

But if you’ve known Jesus for any length of time, you get to know the real Jesus. The One who allows pain and suffering into your life in order to transform you to be more like Himself. The One Who leads you down paths you’d rather not go down. 

Jesus doesn’t give a hoot about how much material wealth you have and He even went so far as to say that if you’re into money, you’re not into Him.

It’s not that God doesn’t want to bless us materially. It’s that it is not His main way of blessing us. He knows what we can handle, how we will use the money, etc. And if our having too much of it gets in the way of our relationship with Him, He has veto power and will nix it in our lives!

The richest blessing of God to us is our continual intimate fellowship with Himself via the Holy Spirit.

So when others show up in our lives and they do not behave the way we expect, they do not have what we think they should have, or are not blessed the way we think God blesses, we need to straighten up and fly right! Get over it already!

God tells us plainly that He looks at our hearts, not how we look, what we “own,” our social circles, and such.

God cares about one thing and one thing only in each of us. Our hearts.

If our hearts are not right, it doesn’t matter if we are billionaires. If our hearts are not right, it doesn’t matter if we are the belle of the ball. If our hearts are not right, it doesn’t matter if our church attendance is perfect.

Are you catching my drift? I hope so because this world doesn’t need more churchgoers worshiping Jesus on Sundays and worshiping their money or reputation Monday through Saturday. He is looking for hearts that are full of Him, hearts that truly belong to Him unreservedly no matter what.

Are you there yet? Do you really want to follow the real Jesus?

Jesus told us plainly that many are called, few are chosen. This is because He knows the cost to follow Him. He knows that He can’t choose those whose hearts are divided and are still clinging to the things of this world more than Him; those whose hearts are still clinging to what they want Jesus to be rather than seeing Him for Who He really is.

What say you? This is heavy stuff, I know. But I’m not here to tickle your ears. I’m here to write as the Holy Spirit leads me. And it’s not all fluff and “living your best life!”

People get ready. The train is coming. Will you be on board with Jesus and His true followers?