The Blessing in a Gift // Blessed to Be a Blessing, Part 3

<p>God has an amazing plan. He blesses us so that we can be a blessing in the world. The question is – how? How do we take what God’s given us and share it around.</p> <p> </p> <h5><span style="color: #ff9900; font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Let’s Get it Straight</strong></span></h5> <p>It is great to be with you today. This is the third message in a series that I’ve called <em>"Blessed to be a Blessing"</em>. I think it’s important for us to take a really deep look at God’s way of blessing us because when we understand that; when we know how God’s working and operating in our lives, it’s such a wonderful thing to see His blessing flow.</p> <p>Over the last couple of weeks we have seen that we often get things the wrong way around when it comes to God’s blessing. I mean, sure, God is a God of blessing; we want to be blessed but what we often don’t come to grips with in our hearts, is how God wants to multiply His blessing through us. To have a flood tide of blessing go out to a parched and dry and hurting world. For His blessing to flow into our lives from God and out through us to other people.</p> <p>Last week we particularly looked at two verses that made that abundantly clear. The first is John chapter 7, verse 37:</p> <p style="padding-left: 40px;"><em>On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty let them come to me and drink, and whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow out from within them.” By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive.</em></p> <p>You see, it’s in and out. If anyone is thirsty, come to Jesus and drink. If you’re looking for something and you’re parched and needy, come to Jesus to drink. Put your faith in Him and rivers of living water will flow out. It’s in and out. It’s one of the greatest passages in all of the Bible. It’s powerful. It’s the crux of being a disciple. We are blessed to be a blessing – rivers of living water. Remember, we looked at it – Nile