You may recognize the title if you ever watched “The Grinch that Stole Christmas”. In our family, we have a lot of fun using that question.  We would agree that everyone likes being rewarded. As said often, our salvation is so much more than a ticket to heaven. The passion of the New Testament writers was that those who had put their faith in Christ might come to know just how great and just how encompassing their salvation was. Knowing God as our Father has rewards for both this life and the one to come. However, there is one catch, one condition, one qualification we must recognize. The scripture does say that it is possible to lose rewards (1 Corinthians  3:10-15). So what’s the condition? How can we be rewarded? The key is found in Hebrews 11:6 which says “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for He who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.”  Also in Matthew 6:33 we read “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you.”  Each of these two scripture reveals the key word to being rewarded and that word is “seek”. As always, the truth of the scriptures gets right to the heart of the issue. It’s so simple, so powerful, but we are rewarded when we seek to know Him. We are forced to either answer the question honestly or we can try to ignore the question, put it off to a later date, etc. The obvious question is this: am I, are you, currently seeking to know this God who says He is our Father, who is waiting to lavish His love on us? In the next post, I will talk about just how we go about seeking Him, so stay tuned.

“The focus of our heart determines what we will receive.” Peter Parris

Blessings,

Buddy

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 As said previously, when we come to know in our inner most being that God is our real Father, everything changes.  One change is that it simplifies life (I’m sure we all say amen to that).  A second implication of God being Father is that it takes away all fear-the fear of death, fear of sickness, fear of loss, fear of anything. If the God who created the universe is MY Father indeed, what is there to fear? I think about Matt Redman’s song-“If my God is with me, whom then shall I fear…”. I know this may sound simplistic –that’s because it IS simplistic! However, this “simplicity” was made available to us by the death of Jesus. Also, this does not mean that all problems, challenges and trials disappear but it does mean we view these things differently-from a son or daughter of God perspective. The fact is that we are in the school of becoming overcomers in life-not being overcome by life. God, in His infinite wisdom allows AND uses difficulties as tools to help us show us our true identity. Jesus was and is the example. Jesus faced real difficulties but He overcame what was before Him-He KNEW His Father.                                                                                                                                                 

Philippians 3:10   “…that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;…”

Think about: 
Do you have fears that need to go?
Do you live day to day conscience of the fact that God is YOUR Father?

I desire your feedback so find the “comment” section and let me hear from you. Remember, this whole “blog” deal is new to me, so I’m always open for suggestions and I ask you to excuse any errors or typo’s you may see.

Quote: “God can use adversity to burn the ropes that bind us”.

Blessings, Buddy