THE BLESSED NOW
To experience fully is a blessed thing.
To stop and truly observe the plot of earth you’re stationed on. To notice your own skin and enjoy being in it. Sensitive to a thousand senses all testifying to you at once. Beautiful senses. Thankful senses. See-how-blessed-I-am senses. Live-in-the-moment senses. Look-around senses.
It is in the stopping and simply being that you find out who you really are, whose you really are, where you are and the countless blessings you’ve been lavished with. It’s in the stopping and being that you behold them.
Treasure lies in the unexpected, unfathomable simplicity of ‘now’.
Heaven’s abrupt interruptions to the busy; therein lies our most sacred inheritance.
Yet the fact remains that we still have the opportunity to enter into the faith-rest life and experience the fulfilment of the promise! For God still has ordained a day for us to enter into called “Today.” (Hebrews 4: 6-7)
I have recently asked myself, what is it that draws a person into yesterday? What draws a person into tomorrow?
We live in a generation that is always blazing towards the next thing. We have lost the art of being fully present. We sip shallow mouthfuls of the now moment rather than plumbing the depths of every encounter.
The person living in yesterday is an ingrate. Blind to the richness of today. Unthankful. Entitled. The Israelites were guilty of this exact thing. Delivered from 400 hundred years of cruel slavery by the supernatural Hand of God that quite literally reached down, plucked them out and set them on a path to promise.
2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16: 2-3)
They looked back constantly and romanticised their previous slavery!
My dear friend, can I assure you, it was not better yesterday!
This living in yesterday is a foul notion. It leaves us inactive, miserable and blind to God’s miraculous.
Equally as devastating is to live in a perpetual state of ‘some day soon’. Living in tomorrow is motivated by fear and unbelief.
Having been told (by God Himself) their every need would be met on a daily basis, the Israelites still feared and took matters into their own hands.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions…
19 Then Moses said to them, “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. (Exodus 16: 4 & 19-20)
If there were one thing I do not want to rot in my life, it would be the grace and provision of God.
Living in tomorrow drives you into a works mentality and works separates you from the purity of Grace.
When we live in tomorrow and our flesh takes over, “I have to sort this all out. I have to work it all out. I have to do, do, do. I’m anxious, nervous and worried.”
So, how do we live in today?
1. FAITH
16 The same people who were delivered from bondage out of Egypt by Moses, were the ones who heard and still rebelled. They grieved God for forty years by sinning in their unbelief, until they dropped dead in the desert… 19 It is clear that they could not enter into their inheritance because they wrapped their hearts in unbelief. (Hebrews 3: 16-19)
So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ. (Romans 10: 17)
In order to live fully in your now, you need to hear the Good News. You need to understand Jesus in the midst of your circumstance. Know this, it is always GOOD NEWS.
If your faith is waning I will guarantee you’ve either misheard, or the news you’re listening to is not the GOOD NEWS of Jesus Christ.
It’s always good
It’s always YES AND AMEN
It’s your right standing with Him
It’s His prognosis over Earth’s diagnosis
IT’S ALWAYS GOOD NEWS!
When you’re anchored in that GOOD NEWS you have faith. When you have faith, you can be fully present in today.
What have you heard?
Do you trust the inner voice of the Spirit to your situation?
Have you heard the God-whisper over your circumstance?
Can you find a quiet place this week to just listen for His voice?
2. TRUST
You need to know that God provides everything you need.
Everything you need you already have.
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. (Matthew 6: 31-34)
When the Israelites saw it [the Manna], they said to each other, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat. (Exodus 16: 15)
Their consuming the Manna was about daily revelation. In eating that Manna the Israelites were waking up everyday and asking God, “What is in today?”
The conversation between you and God might go something like this:
“God, what is it?”
“My career, family, health, finance – what is this?”
To which He might respond,
“It’s what you need for today”
“Do you trust me?”
“Will you allow today's revelation to nourish you?”
“Don’t worry about tomorrow. Be fully present right now”
Expel from your framework a posture of ‘just biding your time’.
No! You must be fully engaged with today’s Manna. He’s feeding you right now.
Today is potent with meaning, purpose and spiritual sustenance.
It is the daily unknown, revealed to us in bite-sized pieces.
What are you pining for in tomorrow that is robbing you from fully experiencing today?
What is waiting for you in this very moment?
How can you be more present, more diligent, with your right now?
3. OBEDIENCE
When you know that your Heavenly Father holds your best interests, you willingly and instinctively obey His instruction.
The depth of your revelation of His love for you will determine the quality of your response to Him.
He tests your trust through your obedience.
Obedience is done out of trust and dependence. When you know it is only Grace that saves you, and your life is entirely His, then your obedience sprouts out of your dependence on Him.
This is why Jesus said,
“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.” (John 14:23)
If you trust God with tomorrow, you’ll have no trouble obeying Him today.
What has God been speaking to you about?
Who has He asked you to speak to, to disciple?
What has He asked you to give?
Has He been inviting you to make time in His Word?
Have you been constructing clever alternatives or diversions?
Is it time to simply obey?
He has has ordained for you a place called “Today.”
It is your portion. It is His blessing to your life. It is waiting for you.
