Who is well off or blessed?

In the last article I wrote I shared the first of four great questions of life according to Dallas Willard. In this article we are going to look at the second of great questions of life. The second question is "who is well off or blessed?"

According to the world's way of looking at things, those that are well off are those that have the most. If one has the most money, cars, land, houses, the most whatever, we look at that one and say that they are well off. This is what the world teaches us. The more we have the better off we are and we can be named the winner.

This is not what Jesus teaches. Jesus taught that we are to seek first the Kingdom of God and then other things will be added (Matthew 6:33). Jesus said nine times in Matthew "Blessed are...." When Jesus used the word "Blessed" it means "happy, fortunate, blissful." This happiness that Jesus is talking about is not some surface emotion that we have when things are going well, but happiness in our soul, our spirit; that can only come from God.

There are times that things may not go our way and that we are feeling down in the dumps of life, and we do not feel very happy. Yet we know that God is caring for us, and we are able to feel his love in a tangible way. We know in our soul that God is all around and watching out for what is taking place in our lives. And even though the circumstances are not going as we would like, we are blessed. This is the blessing of God.

The people that know this blessing, this happy, blissful life are the people that have Jesus living in their heart. It is the people that have the Kingdom of God within, that have invited Jesus into their lives. If a person has never invited Jesus to live within, and be in control of their life, then they will not know true happiness and be blessed. That person may appear happy, but it is only an outside feeling of happiness not peace within.

Therefore if you want true happiness and blessing in your life, invite Jesus in to be Lord of your life. If you do this you will find that you blessed beyond anything that you could believe. Jesus loves you, and he wants to bless you and wants you to well off, but he will never push himself on you. It is up to you to invite him in and you will be well off and you will be blessed.