Seize the Moment – Day 377
You are Blessed!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, March 29.
You have God’s favor—you are “blessed”!
How? Let’s find out…
Just as Jesus taught about God’s blessings in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-11), so we now finish with the beatitudes of the Revelation of John. Unlike Jesus’ sermon where the beatitudes come in rapid succession, these beatitudes are found from the beginning to the end of the book of Revelation, with the last two being in today’s concluding chapter.
Listen to the last two from Revelation 22:7, “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book.” And Revelation 22:14, “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates into the city.”
You are blessed! This is the good fruit of abiding in the Word! As you have disciplined your life for godliness and sincerely read God’s Word with the motive to listen and obey, the result will be that you are blessed.
I encourage you to read the first and sixth beatitudes found in Revelation 1:3 and 22:7 as the bookends of the book of Revelation and press into God’s promise in this last book of the Bible. As Revelation 1:3 promises, “Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.”
You are blessed when you remain pure from the defilements of this world and anticipate the promises of eternity set before you at the finish line of this race set before you (the other five beatitudes found in Revelation 14:13, 16:15, 19:9, 20:6 & 22:14).
Seize the moment and finish the race set before you. You have everything you need to be “Blessed!” Don’t bail before the blessing!
Let’s recite this week’s memory verse from Exodus 6:7a, “I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God.”