God gets the glory….for everything good.  When I look back across the passing of time in my life I thank God that He revealed His love to me.  Oh, you might say, “what about His benefits”, you didn’t mention those.  Well, His love includes all His benefits.  This week I’m just sharing a little from my heart, a little walk down memory lane.

I remember being saved in an accident that almost took my life and my husband’s the day before our first anniversary.  I remember being saved from accidents that “almost” happened; like the time when a driver didn’t stop at an intersection and was only inches away from hitting me.  I remember the time He saved me from drowning, no thanks to my best friend who was keeping me under water because it was too deep for her!  Hah!  I remember being saved from illnesses and sicknesses that could have come my way that were going around in epidemic proportions.  I remember my burnt fingers being healed when canning vegetables one summer evening.  I remember God bringing me through surgeries and healing me quickly from those wounds.  I remember when things were said and done that hurt me a greatly but as I walked in forgiveness and prayed for others, God healed me and delivered me from anger and bitterness.  Praise the Lord!

I remember the different choices that could have taken me down a not-so-good path.  He also saved me from smoking when so many in my life smoked cigarettes.  He saved me from drinking when – again – so many in my life began to drink.  He saved me from the desire of those things which therefore kept me from having to be delivered from the addiction of them.  Praise the Lord!  Now please don’t think me any more special to Him than you are.  If you need or want deliverance from any addiction; God’s power is right there with you, so make the choice to receive His deliverance and His love.  It just isn’t what the Lord wants for us it’s also about whether we make right choices.  Choose to believe and receive His best for you.

I will also tell you this, there are times when “reviewing” my life, I see correct choices that I made and actually wasn’t even aware of how it would lead me closer to Him.  I also see the not-so-correct choices that were made but when I turned my heart toward Him in repentance God delivered me from them.  You can probably say the same about your life too.

I even remember the Bible lesson I heard the day I received Jesus as Savior.  I was in the first grade and the lesson was about “Joseph and his coat of many colors”.  The lesson however wasn’t so much about the colors of his coat but about how he stayed faithful to God regardless of the circumstance in his life.  The lesson was also about God’s faithfulness to Joseph because of his love for God.  The lesson was that no matter how good Joseph was, he wasn’t perfect; that there is only one who is perfect: JESUS.  I wanted to be like Jesus.  I still do.  And through all these years He has taught me, and continues to teach me, how to live for Him and bring glory to Him.  What a wonderful life.

This is not to say that I don’t have regrets about some choices I’ve made; but it does mean that I placed them under the Blood of Jesus by asking for His forgiveness.  It does mean that I continue to reach forth in faith and perseverance to follow God’s plan and purpose for my life.  His plan for me keeps expanding in details because He doesn’t show me everything at once.  His plans are bigger than what I even can think!  His plan and purpose for you is bigger than you think too!

Have I arrived yet?  No, of course not, but it does mean that whatever I do accomplish, He reveals more of His plan for me.  He reveals more of Himself to me and I continue to grow from glory to glory.  Now don’t go jumping off the wagon thinking I’m taking God’s glory because I’m not.  We must understand that as a Christian, a child of God, He lives in us and therefore His glory is in us and is revealed through our obedience to follow, obey, and live for Him.  And no matter how much I accomplish it is still God who gets the glory for accomplishing it through and in me; He created me for good works; I am His workmanship.  You are too.  (Ephesians 2:10)

I challenge you to think back across the times of your life and see the many blessings God has given you and how He is changing you from glory to glory, for His glory.  Have a glorious week.

Philippians 3:13-14 – I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind (regrets) and reaching forward to those things which are ahead.  I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Isaiah 55:8-9 – For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Ephesians 2:10 – For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

1 Corinthians 10:31 – Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 – But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.