Ultimate Favor預覽

God’s Favor for Your Life

We hear a lot about the favor of God these days. That’s a good thing. Without the Lord’s favor, we wouldn’t be able to breathe, stand or find true life anywhere. Our loving, compassionate God looks to bless us with his amazing favor.  

Today, though, the teaching of favor is being twisted by some. They use it as a means to gain material, physical and emotional blessings from God. That’s tragic because it reduces the Lord to just another American commodity. They tell you to invest a little church attendance here, sow a bit of financial seed there, claim the power of your tongue to confess your way into the life you dream of, and—bingo!—you’re favored. 

That isn’t God’s way. He cares for us much more than that. If we get everything we dream of, that’s not favor; that’s lust. True favor isn’t found in the blessing itself; it’s found in the one who does the blessing, our loving heavenly Father. Seeking him, not things, is the hunger that dwells at the core of every human heart.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t want to see God’s blessings flow in our lives. Out of his loving grace and kindness, our Father delights to give good gifts to his children.

As you go through this reading plan, you’ll discover that the Lord’s favor works in two ways. First, he favors us with the nearness of his presence through our stormy times, commanding the winds and waves inside us to cease. I’ve learned a lot about God’s love this way. 

The second way he favors us is through his tangible blessings with the power to heal us, save us and provide for us.

There is God’s assuring presence, and there are his tangible blessings. Both are forms of his favor, and both are needed. To want only personal blessings of physical and material well-being is to limit the Lord. I believe it also grieves his heart. Yet to limit him only to spiritual favor goes to the other extreme, denying God’s role as a Father caring for our physical and material needs.  

I pray this reading plan will create a hunger in you for the ultimate favor of God’s presence. May it prepare your heart to receive his many blessings with joy and thankfulness.