World Evangelism Podcast

Managing Life's Blessings with Gratitude

W. Austin Gardner Season 1 Episode 47

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Can life's biggest blessings also be our greatest responsibilities? Join us as we uncover the remarkable journey of Abraham and how God transformed his life, all while teaching us to manage our own blessings with gratitude and worship. Through an in-depth look at Genesis chapter 12, we reflect on God's promises to Abram and how his transformation into Abraham offers profound insights for our daily lives. This episode is a heartfelt reminder that God's blessings come with responsibilities, urging us to view our finances, families, and daily tasks through the lens of worship and gratitude.

Experience the shift from worship to worry that even Abraham faced, and how recognizing God's work in our lives—especially during challenging times—can reignite our sense of gratitude. Inspired by a poignant passage from Max Lucado, we discuss the beauty of God's unconditional love for us, imperfections and all. Whether you're facing hard times or overflowing with blessings, this conversation calls you to count your blessings and respond with a grateful heart. Tune in and be inspired to rediscover the transformative power of worship and gratitude in your own life.

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W. Austin Gardner:

I want to talk to you about Abraham and how God worked in his life. But in his failure he moved from worship to worry. I do that. I have a problem with that myself. I can be so excited, so blessed and so in love with Jesus, and then things can bother me. It can be just like a cold wind that blows from the devil, or an extremely hot wind that blows from the devil that just takes you away from that peace at worship.

W. Austin Gardner:

In Genesis, chapter 12 and verse 1, god is talking to Abram. At that time he's still called Abram and he's telling him you will be a blessing and you will be blessed and you're going to do great things. And so the first thing I want you to think about with me is that God blesses us to be a blessing. Sometimes, when you read about the nation of Israel, you think that, well, god sure was good to them. But in effect, god gave them great responsibility. He was blessing them so that they would be blessed. By the way, as much as Abraham was blessed, we're blessed. We're blessed by having the salvation of God, the word of God. We have the church of God. God's given us the finances to be able to live our lives and do ministry. God has done so much in our lives that we must realize that with those blessings come great responsibility. We, like Abraham, are blessed to be a blessing, so we should consider how we manage our money, how we handle the blessings of God, how we handle our family, how we handle our life, how we handle the blessings of God, how we handle our family and we handle our life. How do we do all that? God used the family of Abraham to get us the Bible and the church and even the Lord Jesus, and he is also promising to send him back, and he will eventually do through the nation of Israel. World evangelism that leads Abraham to worship Worship will come because Abraham all of a sudden considers and thinks about what God has done in his life. I want to call on you to count your many blessings, name them one by one. Think of all the things that God has done, god's at work in your life. I know you've had some hard times. I know some things have happened that hurt you deeply, all the way to the core. But the truth is we are overly abundantly blessed. We are super blessed by God, and God has been good to us. That's when we'll wake up and say, boy, I worship him.

W. Austin Gardner:

I was in a book by Max Licato this morning. It really blessed me. He talked about this most wonderful moment and I wondered what he meant by that, and that's what a good writer does. He said you know, you wake up in the morning, your breath is so bad you could stain the wall and your hair's wrinkled and there's sleep in your eyes and your face is all messed up and you're messed up and you're nothing clean and nobody should see you at this hour. And you walk in and look in the mirror and there it is. You see exactly what the blessing is because you see you with all your warts and not presentable and not who you are, and you're the one. God loves you, just like you are right where you are with all that's going on your life. God has blessed all of us. We are blessed to be a blessing.