Living & Enjoying My R.E.A.L. Life – Lesson 2 – Receiving God’s Gifts

Thesis: The very things keeping me busy — work, relationships, and daily life — are gifts from God to be received, enjoyed, and shared with Him as I live my R.E.A.L. life.

Series Affirmation My R.E.A.L. life is both spiritual and practical as I receive, enjoy, abound in, and love God and His gifts.

R — Receiving God’s gifts

E — Enjoying God’s gifts

A — Abounding in God’s gifts

L — Loving God & His gifts

Introduction

This is Lesson Two in our six lesson series — Living and Enjoying My R.E.A.L. Life.

Series Goal: To free Christians from the false belief that their spiritual life and their real life are divided, and to help them live and enjoy their R.E.A.L life in fellowship with God.

In Lesson One — Back to the Garden — we established:

• God never designed two lives competing for our time and attention — He designed one life shared with Him.
  
• From the very beginning God included mankind in everything He was doing — work, family, dominion, and community were never separate from fellowship with God.
  
• That pattern never changed — God is still sharing His life with us today through every role and responsibility He has given us.
• Lesson One Thesis: My spiritual life and my everyday life are not competitors — I share one life with God, talking with Him, serving alongside Him, and learning from Him as I live my R.E.A.L. life.

In Lesson Two, we build on what we have learned and we start with the letter:  R — Receiving God’s gifts.

Step One — Recognizing God As The Gift Giver

The first step to living and enjoying your R.E.A.L. life is learning to receive the gifts God gives. But before we can receive them we must first recognize where they come from.

Most Christians know in a general sense that God is a giver. But knowing it and living like it are two different things. We are still prone to take God’s gifts for granted — to enjoy them, use them, and even misuse them without ever truly acknowledging Him as the Giver.

These verses teach us that God is a giver by nature and that all we have, even life itself, is a gift from Him:

James 1:17  “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

What does this verse tell us about God’s character?

• Is He selfish or unselfish?
• Is He active in our life or do we need to work hard to get Him interested in us?

What we learn here is that God is a giver — that is who He is.

• His first instinct is to give.
• He created all things and those things are for us — for our provision, for our use, and meant to be enjoyed.

Take a moment and imagine everything you have needed and enjoyed so far today literally being in the hand of God. And you just reaching out to take it. As you do you look up into His eyes and see a warm smile. He wants you to have these things. He is a giver — and everything good in your life came from His hand.

Next we will look at why He gives us gifts:

1 Timothy 6:17   “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy.”

Think about someone you love and care about right now. (Nod when you have thought of them.)

Now think about a gift you would give them if you could — something they need or something that would make their life easier or better. (Nod when you have it.)

Now ask yourself — what do you want them to do with that gift?

• You want them to use it but you also want them to enjoy it and appreciate it.
• Your joy is not simply in the giving — it is in knowing they needed it, that it made a difference, and that they enjoyed it.

That is the heart of God in every gift He gives.

• He gives so we can enjoy what He has given.
• Every gift from God is useful and He loves for us to enjoy them.

Discussion Questions:

1. How does this challenge how you think of God’s gifts

2. How can you be more intentional about recognizing God as a giver who wants you to enjoy His gifts from His hands?

Now that we have learned that God is a giver by nature and everything good in our life comes from His hand, we will learn to recognize His gifts.

Step Two — Recognizing The Gifts God Gives

Life and Breath

Acts 17:2 “Neither is worshipped with men’s hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.”

Psalm 139:13–14  “For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”

Your very life is a gift from God. The breath in your lungs is a gift from His hand. Every day you wake up is another gift from God — another opportunity to live, love, work, and walk with Him.

Work

Ecclesiastes 3:13 “And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”

Genesis 2:15  “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.”

Work existed before sin entered the world. God gave Adam work in the Garden because work itself is a gift.

• Your job, your skills, your ability to produce and provide — all of it comes from God.
• He gave you the ability to work and He wants you to enjoy it.

We learned in Lesson One that God shared life with Adam; and part of that meant sharing work.

How can you appreciate God’s gift of work?

• Your job does more than provide a living for you and your family — it provides a service or a product that others need.

• God is providing for our world through your work.

• Thank Him for using you as He provides for others.

Family

Psalm 127:3 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”

Proverbs 18:22 “Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.”

Your family: God placed them in your life on purpose. They are gifts from your Father.

• When you spend time talking to God about your family, you are recognizing His gifts.
• Your spiritual life is tied to your family time, as you enjoy God’s gifts, or care for the people He gave you.

Daily Provision

Matthew 6:11 “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Acts 14:17 “Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.”

Jesus modeled what it looked like to recognize God for providing our daily meals, as well as other daily provisions. What have you eaten so far today, or what do you plan to eat later today?

God is the reason you have both the food to eat and the ability to enjoy it. And God wants you to enjoy it.

Ecclesiastes 3:13 “And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.”

So far we have learned to:

• Recognize God as a giver by nature
• Recognize some of the gifts God gives us daily

In the next step we will recognize how to share life with God through His gifts!

 

Step Three — Recognizing How To Share Life With God Through His Gifts

What does it mean to share life with God through His gifts? The answer takes us back to our first lesson and the problem that sparked this series. Many Christians are frustrated because they feel their everyday life and their spiritual life are separate things competing for the same time and attention. At the end of the day there is no time, energy, or mental capacity left to feed their spiritual side. Some come to church feeling guilty because life got in the way of time with God.

But that is not how God designed life to be. Remember our thesis?

The very things keeping me busy — work, relationships, and daily life — are gifts from God to be received, enjoyed, and shared with Him as I live my R.E.A.L. life.

1 Timothy 4:4–5  “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”

Everything God gives is good. When we receive it with thanksgiving it becomes sanctified — set apart as holy — through the word of God and prayer.

• Your meal, your workday, your family time, your rest — all of it becomes holy ground when you receive it from God’s hand with a thankful heart.

Colossians 3:17  “And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.”

Whatsoever — every conversation, task, responsibility, moment. Do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God.

• Paul is describing exactly what a shared life with God looks like in practice. Not a scheduled spiritual event but a continuous thankful acknowledgment of God in everything you do.

Here is how it comes together:

• Recognize that God is a giver who has every provision you need as a gift in His hand waiting to share with you.
• Recognize that God wants to share the day with you — the moments, the meals, the conversations, your thoughts, your fears, your emotions. He wants to show you the world through His eyes and listen as you describe it through yours.
• Recognize that your family, your home, your health, your church, your job, and your daily meals are all gifts from God that He wants to share with you and for you to enjoy with Him.
• As you recognize each gift thank Him for it. Talk to Him about it. Share a verse or a thought with Him. The time you spend with the gifts God has given you — whether you are enjoying them, caring for them, or simply resting in them — becomes time shared with God when you include Him.

At the end of the day you have lived a full everyday life alongside a full spiritual life. They are not in competition — they complement each other.

What Is Next?

Now that we have learned to recognize God as the giver of all things, to recognize the gifts He gives us every day, and to recognize how to share life with Him through those gifts — we are ready for the next step in our R.E.A.L. life.

Next week we focus on the E — Enjoying God’s gifts. Because God does not just want you to receive what He gives — He wants you to enjoy it.

My R.E.A.L. life is both spiritual and practical as I receive, enjoy, abound in, and love God and His gifts.