(Below are Nicole's thoughts on Chapter 23, I don't deserve God's blessings because I'm not worthy Wilderness Mentality #8 of Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter as well. Feel free to leave a comment, question and/or scripture in the comment section below this post. Let's join together and fight this battle.)
Wilderness Mentality #8...I don't deserve God's blessings because I'm not worthy.
When I read this mentality, I think of two kinds of people. The first person is the person who believes that in order to receive blessings from God, you have to earn them. The second person I think of is the one who struggles to believe that they actually deserve the blessings because of something in their past. In this chapter, Joyce shows us how to overcome this mentality and get out of this Wilderness Mentality.
Here are some of the points that Joyce made in Chapter 23 that helped me out the most:
* God wants to give us grace, and Satan wants to give us disgrace, which is another word for reproach. (p. 256)
* God's rolling away the reproach from us means that each of us must receive ourselves the forgiveness He is offering for all our past sins. (p. 256)
* You must realize that you can never deserve God's blessings-you can never be worthy of them. You can only humbly accept and appreciate them, and be in awe of how good He is and how much He loves you. (p. 256)
* Your mind must be renewed concerning right standing with God through Jesus-and not through your own works. (p. 256)
* Please be aware that Satan will fill your mind (if he is allowed to) with all types of negative thinking about yourself. (p. 258)
* Fear of failure and rejection keep many people in the wilderness. (p. 258)
* God is willing to give you mercy for your failures if you are willing to receive it. He does not reward the perfect who have no flaws and never make mistakes, but those who put their faith and trust in Him. (p. 259)
* Whatever we do for God should be because we love Him, not because we are trying to get something from Him. (p. 259)
* ...we should know that we are loved, special, valuable and that we should be holy, blameless and above reproach. (p. 260)
* You will never make it through the wilderness without a great deal of help from God. But, if you have a negative attitude about yourself, even when He does try to help you, you won't receive it. (p. 260)
The kind of mentality I want to touch on in this post is the one we get when we feel we have to earn our blessings. Remember that God knows your heart. He knows your intentions and why you do things. Do you find yourself praying, reading your Bible and even attending church more often when you are in the midst of asking for a huge blessing? I am sure we are all guilty of this at some point in our lives. But here's where we're all missing the point...God doesn't want us to earn his blessings. He doesn't want us to have to feel worthy of his blessings and his love. That's why it's called God's grace. I went to an online dictionary to look up the word grace. Never once did I see it say the word earn. I did see the following words....unmerited divine assistance, favor, mercy, and so many more. You see, God wants to bless us because he loves us not because we lit a candle at church today. Yes, going to church is important. Yes, we need to be reading our Bibles. We do these things to get closer to God. To hear from God. To truly know God. Then and only then will we realize how awesome of a God we have and how truly blessed we already are. We can't trick God into giving us what we want. The only thing we can do is wait and be ready to accept the blessings that God is trying to give us.
Bible Verses:
I am convinced and sure of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will continue until the day of Jesus Christ (right up to the time of His return), developing (that good work) and perfecting and bringing it to full completion in you. -Philippians 1:6
If any of you is deficient in wisdom, let him ask of the giving God (Who gives) to everyone liberally and ungrudgingly, without reproaching or faultfinding, and it will be given him. -James 1:5
Even as (in His love) He chose us (actually picked us out for Himself as His own) in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy (consecrated and set apart for Him) and blameless in His sight, even above reproach, before Him in love. -Ephesians 1:4
But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must (necessarily) believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him (out). -Hebrew 11:6
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