Blessings for All

Many of our churches and churchgoers have sung the hymn with the verse “count your many blessings, count them one by one”.  Honestly, I don’t know how anyone could earnestly contemplate the great and numerous blessings given by God and not begin to pray in thanksgiving!

I surely can’t! The question is, do you often give thanks in prayer for those blessings? Are you appreciative, or apathetic about your gifts from God? (Are you thinking now?)

Did you know that Christians are not the only ones that receive blessings from God?  We were all given the greatest Blessing of all, John 3:16  For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life!

This is the greatest gift of all, and it is and was and will always be the greatest gift! This gift was given to sinners, not the saved! There were no saved people before the Lord Jesus was sent by the Father as the ultimate sacrifice for all of mankind.

The next greatest gift was the gift of a day. Every day we are given an opportunity to serve God or completely surrender ourselves to the will of God.

Those given days are an opportunity for those that are lost to come to the Lord in repentance and be saved. Every new day that a lost individual awakens to is a gift with an option to either come to the Lord or gamble on the possibility of having another day. We are not promised another day nor another hour!

As Christians we could do a great service to the lost by gently reminding them from time to time that they have been given a new day, a brand new opportunity to come to the Lord in believer’s prayer and receive their salvation, and reminding them that this could be the last day they have. Dear friends, we have no idea what the next hour might bring, much less the next day.

Allow me to share two stories with you; one is very personal to me and my family. Back in the mid ‘90s I knew a man named Scott.

He and I had a lot of the same interests and soon became close friends. Scott never missed an opportunity to share a Bible story with me, every time we were together it seemed there would be some window for him to share God’s Word.

I was lost at the time, but Scott never made me feel pressured with his sharing of the Word and I never felt that he was being pushy or preaching to me with some haughty attitude. After some time had passed, Scott became my best friend and was very close with my entire family.

He was a single man and a Godly man. We had grown accustomed to Scott visiting several times a week and at our request he began to spend holidays with us. We all considered him family and looked forward to his presence in our home.

Without getting too deep into my testimony let me explain this—I was a very driven individual, if I wasn’t working, I was teaching martial arts or training and I generally trained until midnight or later every day.

One August evening (I was 35) Scott came by around 10pm, and I was outside training. Scott would stand around and chat with me while I was busy (it was always a welcome distraction).

He began to share the story of Joshua and Jericho. I don’t remember paying any extra attention to that story at the time, after he was finished, he excused himself and left so he could get some sleep.

About 10 minutes later another dear friend and my martial arts instructor of many years came by. John was like Scott in that he never missed an opening to share the Word or a story from the Scriptures.

As I was training, John began to speak the story of David and Goliath, both of these men had a knack for being able to speak to me in a way that I would hear.

When John had finished he excused himself because he had a 30-mile drive home and a big day ahead. I continued to train and just before midnight the Holy Spirit came upon me.

A deep sense of guilt and dread overwhelmed my heart, all of a sudden I couldn’t breathe. It was as if all the oxygen had been removed from the air and my lungs wouldn’t work at the same time.

I stumbled around my front yard for a moment when the realization came that I must cry out to the Lord in repentance. I fell on my knees and with my forehead resting on the ground, I began to weep uncontrollably and called out to the Lord begging for forgiveness and calling to be saved.

A calm came to me that I can’t even begin to explain. I stayed there on the ground for a time and understood I had just been saved by the Grace of the Lord God.

My second story is one I heard from the testimony of a mother. She spoke of attending a church service (I think it was a Sunday evening service) and speaking to her teenage daughter about salvation and coming to the Lord while they were at the Church.

Her daughter, being a somewhat rebellious teen, shunned the idea and took offense at her mother’s efforts. After the service the family headed home, on the way another driver blew through a red light and broadsided their car. The teen girl was killed instantly but the rest of the family only sustained minor injuries.

The point I am trying to get across is our lives can be instantly changed. We have no idea what might be coming or when!

My life in an instant was changed forever as was my eternal destination in a joyous happening, that family’s life and the eternal destination of their daughter was sealed in an instant also.

I hope to show the importance of every moment we are blessed with and of not taking any of them for granted!

Come to the Lord all ye who are heavy laden and He will give you rest!

Romans 10:13  Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved!

Kenneth Kellar
A Man Called by God to Teach and Disciple