Its humbling when you realize

1.Peter 5:6-7 " Humble yourself therefore under the Mighty Hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you"

It is never easy to humble ourself, something deep within us wants to make it on our own and wants to achieve things. But then Gods word comes along and labels everything we do as a sin (Rom 3:10).  We want Gods blessings, but God says no - to get what you want you have to do it My way. Then it is easy to get angry at God, but if we allow ourself to do so we miss the opportunity to be blessed by Him in ways we cant imagine.

God is not opposed to blessing us, He wants to bless us. He wants us to live wealthy and healthy. But so often, we make health and wealth into idols in our lives. We want it, we think about it, and when we do not get our hands on it right away we sulk, get depressed, anxious and we end up blaming God. But all the time God is standing there waiting for us to realize we are coveting idols,and He cant give us our hearts desires as long as we are coveting idols.

Todays text in 1.Peter 4:6 tells us to humble ourself, but it also makes a promise. And its truly a wonderful promise, its the promise of being blessed by God.

So what does it mean to humble ourself under the Mighty hand of God? How do we do that?

To humble ourself under the Mighty Hand of God is to be satisfied with the the death of Christ and His blood. It is to give up every desire of our own and accept that we just need one thing, and that is the blood of Christ. And because we need just one thing, the blood of Christ, we do not concern ourself with anything else. We remain focused on the blood, always praying to God to have the blood for every situation and challenge we face in our lives.

To humble ourself is to agree with God that the blood of Christ is enough. (Romans 8:32) It is to agree with God that as long as you have the blood of Christ you dont need anything else, so that if you where to loose everything but you have the blood you are still the wealthiest person alive on this earth.

I know, this is super scary to some of you. The very idea of loosing everything is super scary. But the blood and the death of Christ is so important that sometimes, God will allow that to happen for you to realize it. Sometimes God will remove every idol in your life for you to understand that the blood is the only thing you need. And when He does this, it is painful. But you can prevent it from happening if you truly understand how important it is for you to be satisfied with the blood.

What happened the day you got saved? You understood you cant save yourself. So you understood and accepted that Jesus died for your sins. That truth, and your choice to accept it, made you righteous and forgave you for all of your sins. But what happened at the same time is a change of ownership.

Before salvation, you used to be your own master. You got to decide what to do, when to do it and how to do it. But if you look back on that life you will soon remember it was a life filled with sin. Perhaps you lived what this world would call a moral clean life, you never robbed any banks. But still in the eyes of God you where just as bad a sinner as the one who had killed a person. How ? The Bible says that if you had one time in your life felt hate towards another human being, God considers it as murder. So you could have lived the most moral clean life there is, you could have been a pillar of society. But if you have felt hate you where guilty of murder. So looking back on those days you have to admit being your own lord was not much fun.

When you got saved, you gave up the rights to your own life. You accepted a transfer of lordship from yourself to Jesus. And now Jesus is your Lord. He is the Boss of your life, He is the one who gets to decide what will happen, how it will happen and when it will happen. And He has only 1 demand for you to fulfill, that is to keep your faith at all times, no matter what happens in the blood of Christ. No matter what happens, remain focused on Jesus dying for you and you will have done your job and fulfilled your obligations.

But you will have done more then just fulfilling your obligation to your Lord. You will have made it possible for Him to bless you and care for you. (1.Pet 4:6) Remember, He is Lord so it is He and not you who gets to decide when it will happen and how it will happen. But you can trust Him that it will happen when the time is right (1.Pet 4:6). And you can trust Him to meet all your needs, even the needs you dont know about (Romans 8:32)

So keep your faith and trust in Jesus dying for you and you will have humbled yourself under the Mighty Hand of God. Dont trust your idols, your needs. Do not covet them, be satisfied with the blood and then you can know for sure He will meet all of your needs when the time is right (Deut 28:1-13, Romans 8:32, 1.Pet 4:6)

Our Lord cares for His own because He loves us. It was love that made Him decide to come to the cross and die for our sins. And it is love that drives Him and motivates Him to keep on caring for us. He is so madly in love with us that He wants the whole world to see how much He loves us by bragging about how much He has blessed us.

Let me repeat myself: He wants to shower us with gifts, He wants the whole world to know we are loved by Him and He wants the whole world to know that He is a good Lord. This can only be done if we accept Him as our Lord and we remain focused and satisfied with the blood.

How?

Our Lord wants us to be wealthy, healthy, protected and provided for. But He wants to be the one giving us our wealth, health and protection. And He can only do this if we let Him get all the glory for doing this for us. He can only get the glory for this if we choose to do nothing. So when people asks us what did we do to deserve the blessings coming upon us, our answer will be "nothing, we just trusted in the blood of our Lord Jesus".

So if you want to have the blessings of the Lord you have to make sure your faith is in the blood and nothing but the blood. And you have to make sure your faith remains in the blood and nothing but the blood of Jesus and the death of Jesus for your sins.

But even when we do this it does not protect us from the cares of this world. We have our faith and trust firmly focused on the blood and the death of Christ, but we will still get sick, have bills we dont know how to pay and experience other trials and tribulations of life.

Our Lord will never get offended if we react with fear, worry and anxiety when these things hit us. But He will get offended if we stay there. So how are we to handle trials and tribulations of life?

We take it in prayer to our Lord. We tell our Lord what troubles us and how we react, and then we pray for the blood of Jesus for the cares of this world.

I know, we have been taught to pray in a way where we end up telling our Lord how to do His job. We are told to pray and instruct Jesus how to act, and when nothing happens, we end up discouraged. But that is not prayer, that is magic and our Lord will have nothing to do with magic. Magic is demonic and from satan.

Prayer is sharing what troubles you with the one who died for you. Prayer is conversations with the one who loves you so much that He died for you. Its conversations with the one who is so powerful that He created everything you see, including yourself. Its conversations with the one who says "look around, if I did all of this, do you really believe it is difficult for Me to help you?".

So when you share your heart with the Lord its ok to tell Him what you would like to happen. What you want, but dont leave your prayers like that. Dont tell the Lord, this is what has happened, this is what I feel and I want this.

Instead try this, tell the Lord what has happened, how you feel about it, what you would like to see happening and ask Him for His blood for the situation. Ask Him to give you His blood for your sickness, your poverty and your need. Need money? Pray for the blood to cover your needs and your expenses. Need healing? Pray for the blood to heal your body and your mind.

He is a good Lord, He loves us and He will not deny us anything if we will just believe in His death and blood (Romans 8:32)