"Oh Lord, to see You, even if the Light of Your presence is best seen against the veil of darkness!" Priscilla Shirer
This prayer was shared by the woman who wrote the Bible study I just completed. It is a reminder to me that God is faithful and unfailing. He is good all the time. His character never changes. He is the same today, yesterday and forever! What I know of Him now and know of Him from His Word will never change. My circumstances, my situations, the seasons of my life may change, but God never will. I can count on Him to sustain me. May I purposely turn my attention on to what God is doing. May I have His perspective on life and the situation I am in. Whether this be the wilderness and dry season of my life or a season of abundance. I must have a "bedrock of remembrance" of Who God is. He is Sovereign. He is good. He is unchanging. And through the difficult times of the wilderness walk, God peppers the desert with oases.
"The Lord is righteous in all of His ways, and kind in all of His deeds." Psalm 145:17
A dear sister made a delightful statement the other day. "If you don't like the fruit, the problem is in the root!" How true this is. If we are unhappy with what we are seeing in our lives, the fruit we are bearing, then we must evaluate the problem as being a root problem. We are to be rooted and grounded in God. Then the fruit of His Spirit can abound to us.
No plant or tree can bear fruit in poor soil. The roots will not bring up the necessary nutrients for life. The fruit will be of no good to anyone. Agricultural parables were often used in Scripture to explain difficult spiritual concepts. "If we don't like the fruit, the problem is in the root." Are we nurturing our minds with things of God. Are we having our lives, our hearts, our minds renewed by God and His Word? This is being rooted and grounded in God. When our foundation is in God, we are firmly established and can face anything this life throws our way as we trust our Sovereign God, who is Lord over all.
And as the parable of the sower speaks of where the seed falls will determine it's success, so too with the lives of people who hear God's Word. (You can read this parable in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark & Luke).
Some seed falls by the wayside and is quickly snatched up by the birds. This seed is likened to the people who hear God's Word but Satan quickly snatches it away.
The sower sows and some seed falls on rocky soil. Seed in rocky soil cannot have substantial roots. It quickly sprouts up only to wither and die because it has no roots to bring in life sustaining water and nutrients. This seed is like the individual who hears God's Word with zeal but never allows a life change to occur. This individual does not have roots that sink down into the Truths of Scripture. Interest in spiritual things last then only for a short season. I am speaking of the necessity to not only hear God's Word but believe it and receive Christ's gift of forgiveness and new life in Him.
The sower sows and some seed falls on soil but thorns also are there. Weeds and thorns compete (and usually win) for nutrients and space in gardens. The sower sows and when the seed sprouts, the life is strangled out by the thorns. This situation is the person who hears the Word of God, receives it but then allows the world, it's cares and materialism to choke out the Truths in God's Word. Jesus gives another picture of this when He says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter Heaven. Why? Materialism. This view of life is idolatrous. One of the Ten Commandments tells us to have no other gods. Yet, we cling to the things of this world and it chokes the life from us.
The last soil receives the seed and is fruitful to abundance. Why? Because the seed was able to sink down roots into the good soil and grow. This soil is the person who hears God's Word, believes it and receives the gift of forgiveness and new life in Christ. This person allows her life to sink roots down into the Truths of God's Word. What does this parable promise? Fruitfulness!
So, where are we sinking our roots? Are we abiding in Christ, the Vine? Are we being rooted and grounded in God by being in His Word and in fellowship with His Body? Are we allowing the Holy Spirit to renew our minds and conform us to the image of Jesus? Are we being the sweet fragrance of Christ?
I pray that we all would be actively living our faith...not because it saves (because it does NOT) but because we love the One Who came and died in our place. And on the third day, He rose again.
In Christ Jesus there will be no disappointment with the fruit. And we, in Christ Jesus, abide in His sovereignty knowing that He is using all that comes in to our lives to draw us into His likeness. Though difficulties arise, we know God remains the same. He will never forsake us. He may even deliver us out of difficulties. But if He doesn't, we can trust Him and be assured that He will see us through to the end because He loves us and we belong to Him.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)