Eat the Cake: The Watch Letter

Benefits. A term we all know well. There are social security benefits, unemployment benefits, government assistance benefits, health, car, and life insurance benefits, pension/retirement benefits, membership benefits, fringe benefits, spousal benefits, and the list goes on. These are things that we count as blessings when we receive them.

In fact, for the most part, when we think of blessings we think of this definition of benefit: an advantage or profit gained from something, such as a payment or a gift.

But the historical definition of benefit is "good deed." A good deed is an act of unmerited kindness, grace, benevolence, courtesy, generosity, charity, and favor. These are the benefits David was speaking of in Psalm 116:12-14

"What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?

I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.

I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people."

David knew that the blessing was not in what he had or would gain or have access to but it was in God's saving grace. He counted himself blessed because God simply chose him, loved him, forgave him, helped him, protected him, strengthened him, provided for him, and did not forsake him despite his sin.

Matthew Henry described those verses as David's expression of God's gracious deliverances and expressions of devotion, love, and gratitude (despite any great distress, disappointment, infirmity, sorrow, drought, and trouble he may have faced.)

How humbling.

We can get so busy looking to be "blessed" that we become blind to the blessing God himself is to us and the blessing of peace and care he has given us to carry us through.

This takes me to a mighty word our Pastor Chief Apostle H.C. Gunn preached on Wednesday. All of what he said contained the life of God and his words released an anointing of deliverance but there is one part I wanted to share on The Watch Letter today.

He said: We really don’t know how blessed we are!

Eight words that can change our eternity.

Much of why we backslide and allow ourselves to separate from and turn our backs on God is ingratitude. Chief Apostle Gunn has taught us that the word of God is true in stating that nothing can separate us from God but the only thing that can separate us from God is us and our decisions.

And often the reason we leave God and reject him is that we fail to be grateful for the benefits he has already rendered to us from the foundation of the universe. Those benefits are enough to give us a reason to rejoice in him and respect him forever. Everything else we receive is just icing on the cake. But so often we'd rather have the icing and not the actual cake. And the reason we don't want the cake is because we don't rehearse and remember how great and good God is.

Chief Apostle Gunn also said on Wednesday, "Appreciate God enough to find out who he truly is and who we truly are by reading the Bible."

This answers so much. We struggle with ungratefulness because we aren't reading, absorbing, and observing all that God has done to execute the plan of salvation so that we can be close to him again and not be slaves to sin and our flesh.

From the moment Adam took his first breath, God was blessing us with life. From the time Noah built the arc, God was preserving us. From the second Jesus passed through Mary's womb God was delivering us. From the hour Jesus hung on on the cross God was regathering us. From the day the Lord resurrected God was pouring victory all over us. And from the instance that the Lord sent his Holy Spirit to inhabit his people during the Pentecost, God was strengthening and empowering us. What a testimony of blessing upon blessing.

During the Wednesday message, Chief Apostle Gunn reminded us that we should consider ourselves blessed when we think about how Jesus brought us back to God by his sacrifice. And how God adopted us because of Jesus' obedience and allowed us to be saved. And how God all along had been working to bring us into his royal priesthood so that we could be seated with him in Heavenly places.

When we really consider these things we can begin to see ourselves as richly blessed and blessed beyond measure. The earthly gain we are seeking is but a grain of sand in comparison to the wonderous works God has already done for us.

Chief Apostle Gunn has always taught me to decree that I am super abundantly blessed in every area of my life no matter what I am facing. But after hearing the message he taught I have to repent. Because yes the Lord has spoken blessing over me, but in me speaking that I am super abundantly blessed have I been counting the blessing of creation, the blessing of salvation, the blessing of redemption, the blessing of adoption, the blessing of instruction, and the blessing of knowing God's mind through his word. All of which was already given to me in superabundance before I was formed in my mother's womb?

Sometimes we can think we are praying and speaking things in faith of what we are hoping for God to do but we are leaving out gratefulness for what God has already done.

Chief Apostle Gunn gave an example that when a child is grateful for what their parent has done, they will go where they ask them to go and do what they ask of them and want to be near them. One thing God has asked us to do that Chief Apostle Gunn shared the other day was to let go of the things that angered us, hurt us, disappointed us, violated us, etc., so we can grab hold of him but because we aren't grateful enough we don't see God as worthy enough for us to let go of other things to fully access and embrace him. How can we wrap ourselves around him and also receive his embrace if we have all this junk in our hands?

I saw the image below online the other day and it's the perfect illustration of how we are drowning ourselves and weighing ourselves down because we won't let gratitude inspire us to forsake everything for God who has never let us down.