Thought for July 27

 History:

• 1586: Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco from Virginia to England
• 1789: Congress creates Department of Foreign Affairs [State Department]
• 1890: Van Gogh shoots himself, dies 2 days later
• 1921: Insulin isolated by Banting and Best
• 1940: Bugs Bunny debuts in 'Wild Hare"
• 1953: Korean Armistice signed
• 1965: Cigarette health warnings required
• 1988: Radio Shack announces Tandy 1000SL computer
• 2020: Google allows employees to work from home
• Born: Leo Durocher, Norman Lear, Peggy Fleming, Maureen McGovern, Christopher Dean [Torville & Dean, Bolero], Ed Ogeron, Alex Rodriguez, Ryan Tannehill, Jordan Spieth, 
• Died: Joseph of Arimathea, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi [last Shah of Iran], James Mason, Frank Zamboni, Bob Hope, Sam Shepard, Caroline Sandell-Berg [called the Fanny Crosby of Sweden and writer of Day by Day]

Day by Day is a great hymn of affirmation and encouragement. Google it today and rest in these thoughts:

• Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause for worry or for fear
• Every day the Lord Himself is near me, with a special mercy for each hour
• As your days your strength shall be in measure [Deuteronomy 33:25]
• Help me then in every tribulation, so to trust Your promises O Lord

Thought:

Multitudes are following Jesus. Today I am beginning a look at the Sermon on the Mount. Most of us learned the Beatitudes at some point. This morning I am just thinking about the word "blessed." In the original it is "makarios" a word used 49 times in the gospels and 288 times in the NASB. This week I'll be looking at the use of blessed in this sermon, but the Bible uses it other places. Here are a few in the NT:

• Matthew 11:6--Blessed is He who keeps from stumbling over Me. We are blessed when we don't miss Jesus. The picture is a rock in the path and while it is clearly visible, we nonetheless trip over it. You are blessed when you see Jesus and do not miss what He is saying and doing. For the Pharisees they tripped over Jesus because He was not the Messiah they expected or wanted. 
• Matthew 13:16--Blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. We are blessed when we see with spiritual eyes and hear with spiritual ears. We pray for God to open our eyes to see as He sees and to clear our ears so that we hear His voice clearly. When that happens we are truly blessed.
• Matthew 16:17--Blessed are you Simon Barjona because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And when we open our eyes and ears, God is able to reveal Himself to us and show us things that only He can show us. 
• Matthew 21:9--Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Here the word speaks of Jesus, but for us when we come into our day in the name of the Lord, we are blessed. We walk in His name and talk in His name--then we are blessed. As I have said before, I try and test what I say and do with this question "Can I say this or do this in the name of Jesus?" Anything that I cannot do in His name, I should not do.
• Matthew 24:46--Blessed is the slave that His master finds doing the Masters will. Jesus sees all and knows all and one day He is returning in glory. If Jesus always finds us doing His will, we are blessed. He reveals His will in the word and through prayer. But my problem is not knowing His will but doing His will. 
• Luke 11:28--Blessed are those that hear the word of God and observe it. As the previous verse suggested we are blessed when we don't just hear the word or repeat the word, but we do the word. He blesses doers of the word.
• John 20:29--Blessed are they who did not see, but believed. Now here is a great thought. God blesses faith that believes and trusts even when we cannot see or understand. 

Now think about what it means to be blessed. Blessed is not just a feeling; in fact we are blessed even when we do not feel blessed. When the Bible says blessed, it is a statement of reality--you may not feel blessed, you may not look blessed, but you are blessed because God sees you as blessed and what He sees and says is reality. 

Today, think about how blessed you are and then consider the verses above--want to be blessed, keep those scriptures.

Blessings

Larry