Joel Osteen sermon Can You Handle The Blessing?: Today Joel Osteen talks to us about “can you handle the blessing”? We all love to be blessed, to see new doors opening, our business taking off, we meet the person of our dreams, or we move into that new house. We know that God is taking us where we can’t go on our own, but here’s the key, the blessing doesn’t come by itself.
Jesus told his disciples in mark 10, “anything you give up for my sake, houses, property, people, you will receive in this life, a hundred fold return with persecution.” he could have said I’m going to give you the blessing, the houses, the resources, the promotion, and left it there. But he added this asterisk so to speak and said, “I’m going to bless you but with that blessing is going to Come opposition, jealousy, and criticism, people that are not for you.
The question is not so much can you handle the blessing? The question is: can you handle the persecution? Can you handle being misunderstood, talked about, and left out? Not everyone is going to celebrate your success. All your friends won’t be happy when you get that promotion, all your relatives won’t cheer you on when you move into that new house, when your business increases, when you get engaged. The favor on your life will stir up the jealousy, the competition, envy in certain people.
Do not get upset, it’s not about you; it’s about the blessing on your life, you can’t have the blessing without some kind of persecution. If you’re going to be blessed on a greater level, you’re going to be persecuted on a greater level.
If you can handle the persecution, then God can trust you with the blessing. As long as you’re going to be offended, upset, fight with people, then the blessing wouldn’t be a blessing. You have to pass the test of overlooking insults, ignoring what people are saying, not paying attention to the critics, those trying to discredit you. They wouldn’t be talking if you weren’t making a difference, if you weren’t a leader or if you weren’t shining brightly.
Let God deal with the naysayers, let God take care of those that are trying to make you look bad, trying to stir up trouble, leaving you out. Some people can’t handle your success; they were fine as long as you were at their level, they had no problem as long as you were in the same department, as long as you were single like them, as long as you lived in their neighbourhood, but when God blesses you in a greater way, it can stir up things, you have to be okay with them not being okay with you.
Your time is too valuable to worry about what people think about you, your assignment is too important to try to convince everyone to like you, do not waste your time and energy trying to make someone to be for you that’s never going to be for you.
Joel Osteen wants us to know that you don’t need everyone to celebrate you; you don’t need all your coworkers, all your relatives to cheer you on. If you become too dependent on people, what they think, you will loose focus and not enjoy your blessing you do not need any man’s approval, you have almighty God’s approval.
Credit : Joel Osteen Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/c/joelosteen)