Abundance and more abundance

My family and I live on a small farm. We are so blessed that our God gave us this little bit of land to be His stewards over. Though we are not full-time farmers, we have learned some about farming and can now relate a bit more easily to the agricultural parables and analogies used in Scripture.

God chose to use these agricultural stories to help us understand some deeper spiritual truths about Him. The following three Scripture passages are but a few that speak of God's abundance.

"I will send you the seasonal rains. The land will then yield its crops, and the trees of the field will produce their fruit. Your threshing season will overlap with the grape harvest, and your grape harvest will overlap with the season of planting grain. You will eat your fill and live securely in the land." Leviticus 26:4-5.

"Then the Lord will bless you with rain at the planting time. There will be wonderful harvests and pleanty of pastureland for your livestock. The oxen and donkeys that till the ground will eat good grain, its chaff blown away by the wind." Isaiah 30:23-24

"The time will come," says the Lord, "when the grain and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested. Then the terraced vineyards on the hills of Israel will drip with sweet wine!" Amos 9:13 

Farmers depend upon a time for sowing and reaping, rain, sun, seed, harvest and time for threshing. In these Scripture passages God is describing what a life restored in Him will be. His promises will be fulfilled. In the book of Leviticus, God is describing a time of such abundance that there is overlap from one season to the next-from the time of harvest of grains and threshing its bounty to the gathering of grapes until it is time to plant grain again...this agricultural description is speaking of God's abundance which is without end!

Now this promise of abundance is indeed conditional. It is to those who belong to God through Jesus Christ. To the Israelites of the time, verse 3 of Leviticus 26 states, "If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands,"  and is then followed by the promise of abundance. In the New Testament the following of God's decrees and obeying His commands is certainly reinforced but NOT as a way to "earn" entrance into Heaven. We obey Him out of a changed heart and is evidence of a life changed by the hand of God.

God's abundance is unending.The definition of abundance is: more than adequate quantity or supply. Abundance means that there is fullness, overflow, plenty. The Greek word we translate to abundance perissos means: in the sense beyond, super abundant in quantity, excessive, exceedingly, beyond measure.

"For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon Thee." Psalm 86:5. And Jesus said, "I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly." John 10:10(b)

Paul reminds us "And God is able to make all grace abound to you, that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed." 2Corinthians 9:8

What do we learn from this exercise? That God is good, ready to forgive and abundant in lovingkindness (His lovingkindness is super abundant, His love is excessive). Now in todays society  excessiveness is only self serving. However Scripture gives us a picture of a good kind of excessiveness. God is excessive in His abundant lovingkindness. His love toward us is beyond what we can comprehend! Now THAT is the kind of excessive we can live with!

We also learn that God is able to make His grace abound to us (His grace will be super abundant!) and that we will have this abundance for every good deed. We will have super abundance for every good deed we are called to do. God does provide.

Now if we think back to the agricultural terms used to express more about God and His kingdom, we learn that He provides all that we need and is necessary for life. Paul, inspired and compelled by the Holy Spirit writes, "All Scripture is inspired by God an profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." His Word is what we need for life. His Word gives us pictures of His character. And what we can learn from today's reading is that God is generous. He gives in abundance, according to His riches. Are we, who are His children, ready to live like children of the King? To live in His abundance, according to His riches and His mercy and His lovingkindness. I pray that it is so for each one of us.

And if you do not belong to Him, the free gift of His adoption of you is still available. God tells us that He so loved the world that He sent His Son to die in our place so we could join Him in His place. It is a free gift to repent of our sins and receive new life in Christ. Then...you too can enjoy the super abundant life in Jesus.