My cup overflows with blessings. Psalm 23:5
Jesus Tells Us; This is a time of plenty in your life. Your cup overflows with blessings. Enjoy this time, it is My gift for you. Don’t feel guilty when everything is going well. Don’t turn away from my blessings because you think you don’t deserve to be so blessed. that is nonsense. The truth is that no one deserves anything from Me. My kingdom is not about earning blessings. And life with Me is not some sort of game in which you earn points to buy prizes. Instead of trying to work for My blessings, I want you to receive them thankfully. I give you good gifts because I love to see your joy when you receive them. So, open your hands and your heart, and accept My blessings gratefully.
Jesus Concludes; this brings Joy to you and to me!
Psalm 23:5; John 3:16; Luke 11:9-10; Romans 8:32 Study Notes
Footnotes Psalm 23:5-6; In ancient Middle Eastern culture, at a feast or banquet, it was customary to anoint guests with fragrant oil. Hosts were also expected to protect their guests at all costs. God offers the protection of a host, even when enemies surround us. In the final scene of this Psalm, we see that believers will dwell with the Lord. God, the perfect shepherd and host, promises to guide and protect us throughout our lives and to welcome us as special guests in his house-forever.
Passage John 3:16; For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Footnotes John 3:16; the entire gospel comes to a focus in this verse. God’s love is not static or self-centered, it reaches out and draws others in. Here God sets the pattern of true love, the basis for all love relationships, when you love someone dearly, you are willing to give to them freely, to the point of self-sacrifice. God paid dearly with the life of his Son, the highest price he could pay. Jesus accepted our punishment, paid the price for our sins, and then offered us the new life that he had bought for us. When we share the gospel with others, our love must be like Jesus’, willing to give up our own comfort and security so that others might join us in receiving God’s love.
Passage Luke 11:9-10; 9 So, I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
Footnotes Luke 11:8; Showing persistence and boldness in prayer will help us better understand the heart and mind of God. Often, we hesitate to keep asking God for something we need or want. But as we come before him again and again, our constant conversation with our loving creator breaks down barriers and assumptions in our hearts and minds. As we practice persistence, we have time to sort out what we really want and what we really need, which eliminates shortsighted request. So, keep talking to God, keep asking. This will change the way you pray and communicate with him.
Passage Romans 8:32; He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Footnotes Romans 8:31-34; Do you ever think that because you aren’t good enough for God, he will not save you? Do you ever feel as if salvation is for everyone else but you? Then these verses are especially for you. If God gave his Son for you, he isn’t going to hold back the gift of salvation! If Jesus gave his life for you, why would he turn around and condemn you? He will not withhold anything you need to live for him. The book of Romans is more than a theological explanation of God’s redeeming grace, it is a letter of comfort and confidence addressed to you.
Jesus Tells Us is from the Jesus Calling 365 devotions for kids.
Footnotes Source: Life Application Study Bible
THE WORLD…we see history
SECRET PRAYERS OF 3 HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE STUDENTS, SEPTEMBER 1887, KINDLING THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING CARY ALLEN, SEPTEMBER 1787
Evangelical Christianity crashed after the American Revolution. Church attendance dropped to near nothing, and French rationalism swept over colleges, which became hotbeds of atheism. Thomas Paine’s anti-Christian ravings demoralized the church, and the reorganization of society and its west-ward expansion left little time for spirituality. Chief Justice John Marshall worried that the church was too far gone to be redeemed. But a Second Great Awakening was on its way, kindled by students at Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College. The First Great Awakening, remember, had stirred the American Colonies with spiritual vitality and zeal. And now America needed a second dose. A Hampden-Sydney student named Cary Allen had embraced Christ in September 1787. Another, William Hill, began secretly reading Joseph Alleine’s book Alarm to the Unconverted, which he kept locked in his trunk. One day a third student, James Blythe, found him reading it and broke out in sobs, under deep conviction. These three students met secretly for prayer in a thick forest about a mile from the college and determined to meet the next Saturday on campus. Their secrecy was due to other students’ animosity toward Christians. Fundamentalist secularism harbors a deep intolerance for the Christian faith. That was as true in the early 1800s, as it is today. As Hill later recounted:
Although we sung and prayed with suppressed voices, not wishing it should be known what we were about, we were overheard by some of the students, when it was noised about through every room in college and a noisy mob was raised, which collected in the passage before our door, and began to thump at the door, and whoop, and swear, and threaten vengeance. We had to cease, and bear the ridicule and abuse of this noisy riot, which could not be quietened until two of the Professors intervened and ordered them all to their rooms. Information of this riot was given to [President Robert Blair] Smith, [who] demanded the cause of the riot, and who were the leaders in it.
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Some of the most prominent leaders stepped forward and said, there were some of the students, who had shut themselves up in one of the rooms in college, and began singing and praying and carrying on like the Methodists, and they were determined to break it up. The President’s eyes filled with tears. After a short pause, he said – And has it come to this! Is it possible! Some of my students are under religious impressions, and determined to serve their Savior! And is it possible that there are such monsters of iniquity, in college, who dare set themselves against such things! turning to the Christians, Smith said, “I rejoice, my young friends, that you have taken the stand you have. You shall not be interrupted in your meetings for the future. Your appointment next Saturday afternoon shall be held in my parlor, and I will be with you.” A sense of conviction swept over the college, and the next week, the parlor was filled with praying students. A spirit of revival overspread the campus and penetrated into Virginia, spreading through churches and schools. President Blair’s father, who had been converted during the First Great Awakening, came to investigate the matter. On October 26th, 1788, he wrote to a friend:
The half was not told me of the display of God’s power and grace among them, no, not the tenth part. I have seen nothing equal to it for extensive spread, power, and spiritual glory since the years ’40 and ’41. The word has spread for a hundred miles. The blessed work has spread among many people of every description, high and low, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, orthodox and heterodox, sober and rude, white and black, young and old, especially the youth. The elder Blair was using Biblical language when he said the half had not been told him. That was the reaction of the Queen of Sheba when she visited the kingdom of Israel in Solomon’s time and saw the great wealth, education, public works, and unity of the land. She said she didn’t believe the earlier reports she heard “until I came and saw with my own eyes, and indeed the half was not told to me” (Kings 10:7). That’s how observers described the revival that erupted on university campuses at the beginning of the period known as the Second Great Awakening, the series of revivals that swept over the new United States of America, starting among students at places like Hampden Sydney College. One of the marvels of American history is how the country was born between two of the greatest revivals in history. The First Great Awakening prepared the Colonies for independence, and the Second solidified her moral and spiritual foundation for the future. Today our nation’s problems are not primarily political but spiritual. And the answers are not found in our politics, but in the hope of another spiritual return to God.
Source: 100 Bible Verses that made America Page 116: https://www.robertjmorgan.com/100verses/