Thanking God for Your Food

John 6:11  And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks.

The practice of thanking God for our food and provision is taken from the life of Jesus. The scripture does not command us to pray before we eat our meals, but it appears to be something that was done regularly by Jesus. Because we desire to emulate the life of Christ, and walk in His footstep, we practice the ritual of praying and thanking God for our food before we partake. It is practicing thanksgiving in our everyday life. Acknowledging that all good things come from God and He is the giver of life. Taking time to give thanks for the food we eat is a good and spiritual practice. Will it save you? Probably not. But, it will draw you closer to God, and recognized His goodness.  

God is Good

Gen. 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

Every blessing that we receive is from the Father above. He does all things good. He works all things for good and according to His purpose. Evil, the hideous curse of our world is the work of Satan. He seeks to destroy and cause God’s creation to turn away from their creator. The battle of good and evil started in cordials of heaven, when Satan challenged the holiness of God and His authority by asserting his will above God. Created as an angel, he was cast out of heaven, and now is the princes of darkness that seeks to destroy the apple of God’s eye. Because God is good, He sent His son to destroy the work of the devil and deliver man from evil. To those who serve God, their eyes have been open to truth, and see God in all of His goodness. “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” God is good, all the time!

Thunderstorm from God

Hosea 6:3 if we follow on to know the Lord: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain,

After a long dry spell of warm weather, the falling of rain is refreshing. A good rain will wash away the debris and soak the ground with moisture to allow the grass and flowers to flourish. We have gone a few weeks without any significant amount of moisture here in the Denver metro area. I enjoy the dry air, but if we want to see the new life of spring, we need to see some rain. We often go through dry spells in our spiritual life, we go day by day doing what is right and doing our best to follow Him, but every once in while we need a thunderstorm from God. We need Him to come down from heaven and flood our hearts with His glory and presence. Let the heavens open up and let the rain of His love and grace fall upon us. We are in need of fresh outpouring of rain. Stay faithful to follow the Lord, cry unto Him and beseech Him for His presences. He shall come unto us as the rain.

Giving Back

1 Chron 29:14, 17 “..For all things come from Thee, and from Thine own have we given Thee… As for me, in the uprightness of mine heart I have willingly offered all these things;..”

Hold loosely to the things of this world. We came into this world with nothing and we will leave it with nothing. From dust we came and to dust we will return. God has made us stewards of what we have. He has blessed us with life and strength to provide food and shelter. The things we have will fade away with time and only that done for Christ will last when this life fades away.  The things we have are given to us by God, He is our great provider. We take what He has provided and the desire of our hearts is to give all things back to Him. We consecrate our life to Him in full surrender to all we have. It is more than just giving back the temporal things of this world, but the greatest offer we can give Him is the offering of our life. He blesses us in many ways, and my heart is grateful and willing to give back to Him anything He desires. 

The Greatest Blessing

Psalm 32:1 “ Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered.”- 

The greatest blessing and grace that a man can have is to know that their sins have been forgiven and they are covered by the blood of Jesus. The complete work of salvation was completed when Christ came to die on the cross to make the final provision for man’s forgiveness. Guilt is part of man’s nature that God’s uses it to alert man that they have done wrong. Not all guilt is from God, but action and behavior that is contrary to God’s law causes man to take notice of their sinful condition. The load of guilt can prick at the conscience and make life unbearable. To be free of guilt is a blessed state of mind and brings peace to the heart of all who will confess it to God. As Christian, we also can experience guilt even though we have not willfully sinned. In the human, our actions and behavior may not be sinful, but they may not always be constructive. It is sometime after the fact that we realize that we wrongful judged, or spoke harshly. The Holy Spirit is faithful to use our conscience and cause us to experience guilt. It’s mistakes like this that His grace is sufficient and greater to cover. Confessing our fault to one another and to God will bring the smile of God and His blessing.