Are You Blessed Today?

I am in the airport in Atlanta waiting for my connecting flight to Nashville. I spent some time this morning reading in Luke chapters 11 and 12. In the ending verses of Luke chapter 11 Jesus cast out a demon and the religious leaders of the day begin to accuse him of essentially being a demon himself. Jesus in a way that only He could do, quickly address the outlandish remarks by presenting truth and turning the tables on them. He turns their comments into an opportunity for his accusers and nay sayers to examine their own hearts. As a result of this exchange that Jesus is having a woman who is watching all of this go down yells out from the crowd..."Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." Jesus repled, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!"
I love that Jesus always points us back to the essential truth which is obedience. Hearing God and obeying Him is what leads to a blessed life. The Bible is consistent in this theme of hearing and responding to God, yet we struggle so much with this...well maybe you don't I know for sure I do. Why is that? There can be an exhaustive list of reasons why this is true, but I felt strongly that God revealed a couple of reasons to me this morning:

#1. I spend more time analyzing and justifying why it may be okay not to obey immediately to what God has spoken. It as I reason God's Word right out the window. How stupid is that? But when you read the Scriptures you see quickly that many of the men written about did the same thing. To no effect mind you.

#2. I read God's Word consistently but do not invest enough time internalizing it, processing it, meditating on it. To many times I read as a practice or a tool of study or even worse I read it and feel as though what I have read was clearly for someone else. Again, I know, I know, how stupid is that? Read John 21 and again you will see that I am in pretty good company when it comes to this brutal mistake.


#3. I do not take the time to see the pain that can come from my failure to obey God immediately. Let's face it how many of us ever think about the ticket we will receive if we break the law by speeding. That thought doesn't come to our mind until we see the lights behind us and we see the officer approaching our driver side window...yup been there too many times.

Again I could have listed many reasons, but these were the ones that God truly laid on my heart this morning. So, here's the question how are you doing in responding to God's Word? Are you obeying immediately? Are you still trying to reason it away? Well, I can't say it better than Jesus..."Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it." If you've stumbled across these ramblings my prayer is that you would be "blessed" today. God Bless You!