Preparing For Blessing

3:16: "Make this valley full of ditches"

We want to look at this verse and deal with it devotionally
We draw from it a theme: the theme of preparing for God's blessing. They needed ditches for water to be cast into. They had to prepare for the blessing that was to come. There is a necessity for us to prepare to for blessing for it is a truth that preparation precedes blessing. How do we prepare for God's blessing?

1. Put away the idols in our lives
   Idols are anything that takes our hearts and minds away from God
   1 Samuel 7:3: If ye do return unto the LORD with all your hearts, then put away the strange goods...from among you."
   1 Corinthians 10:14: Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry

2. Cleanse the temple of the Lord
   The temple is the residence of the deity. In the Old Testament, the tabernacle was a place set apart for worship. Paul uses tabernacle as a metaphor for our bodies. We need to cleanse the temple of our hearts
   1 Corinthians 3:16 - know ye not that ye are the temple of God

3. Return to the place of blessing
   Genesis 28:12-21 - Bethel was the place of blessing for Jacob. At Bethel, Jacob found assurance of the Lord's protection, preservation, presence, performance of the promise and Jacob consecrated himself to the Lord

4. Exercise personal holiness
   You can't desire to have blessing on one hand and live an ungodly life on the other hand