"To Be Blessed..."

"Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and Thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me." (Psalms 18:43) As with so many other verses in the Bible that speak of God's deliverance from whatever it is that binds us, in the midst of His deliverance there is a blessing that springs forth from it; sometimes there are multiple blessings, that will actually multiply as we move forward in the deliverance. The bottom line, is that God really does want to bless our lives beyond measure; but in order to do that, He needs us to be walking in obedience to that which He has called us into, and to be walking away from that which He has delivered us from. Going back to that little gig about being a master craftsman; there are some things that must be birthed in a man before he can become great in that which he does, and the primary thing that must happen is that he will put great effort into making whatever he does something that can be witnessed as excellence. In other words; that which he does matters to him as something that others will observe as excellence, and he therefore makes excellence part of his work. When Paul says in 1 Corinthians 9:25, "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things", he is making a point of how those that strive to be the very best at what they do, do so with great self-control and self-governance; such as an athlete who prepares to win a competition must push himself to train well, and must put worth every effort to avoid those things which will hinder his training. To those that might be of a particular craft, what they do is very similar, in that they make every effort to create something that others will marvel at, and to do so by removing every flaw that might exist in whatever they are making. I have a little problem when it comes to paying people for their service or merchandise, in that I seldom ever complain if they over charge me, but I am quick to complain if they under charge me. For example, I hardly will ever add up the bill before paying for my meal at a restaurant, unless I think that they might have left off something that I ordered. Or if paying for merchandise, and I feel that they might have forgotten an item, I make sure that they check and make sure that it is correct. The reason that this sometimes gets me into trouble, is that every one's first natural reaction is to think that I am looking for a mistake to my favor instead of looking for one that is to theirs, and they immediately get offensive when I want to dispute the bill. But I never get tired of the reaction on their faces when they discover that I refuse to be under charged; it makes anything spent, worth every cent not saved. The point that I am trying to make, is that what we exemplify to others in our lives really matters, and is something that will be counted for or against us in the end; therefore, we strive for that which is incorruptible, and which displays the commands of Him that we serve...