Tag: Treasure

The Spirit of Thanksgiving Past, Present, and Future

Posted on by Dorci

If H.G. Wells had been able to build a time machine, I wonder how many people would jump in the morning after Halloween, push the lever forward a couple of months and stop on December 25.  Eh, maybe the 24th. Jump from party to party, candy to presents, and skip Thanksgiving altogether.

I’ve never quite understood why some people seem content to forgo Thanksgiving.  Maybe because it’s not a commercial holiday it’s not as popular.

Maybe giving thanks doesn’t come as easy to us as getting gifts. Maybe people don’t understand how vital it is to our spiritual, mental, emotional, and even physical health to have a thankful heart. Maybe people don’t think they have much to be thankful for.  And maybe that answers a lot of questions about the state of our States.

Let’s jump in H.G. Wells’ time machine, pull the lever, and travel back to October, 1863, when Thanksgiving became a national holiday.

***

We’re in the middle of the Civil War.

It might seem a peculiar time to think about declaring a national holiday of giving thanks, but maybe it was the best time. A God-appointed time.

When we’re facing trials and hardships and pain and suffering is when we most need to stop…  and remember all we have to be thankful for, and most importantly, Who we have to be thankful for. 

So on October 3, 1863, roughly six months after he signed a Proclamation of a Day of Fasting, and a year and a half before the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed his Proclamation of Thanksgiving.

Of course, that’s only the beginning of Thanksgiving as our national holiday, but not the beginning of giving thanks. Other historical moments might also seem to have peculiar timing.

Let’s travel back a bit further…

***

After seeking the Lord and fasting, King Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, appointed men to sing these words to the Lord as they went into battle against their enemies:

“give thanks to the LORD,
for His love endures forever.”
2 Chronicles 20:21b

“As they began to sing and praise, the LORD set ambushes against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.” (2 Chronicles 20:22)

***

While fleeing from his enemies, David gives thanks to the Lord because of His righteousness. (Psalm 7:17)

***

In the darkened night as He faced being arrested, tortured, and handed over to be crucified, Jesus gives thanks.

***

And while in the chains of a dark prison, Paul exhorts all of us to “not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philip 4:6-7)

***

If praising God and giving thanks had the effect it did in the lives of all these who saw the Lord triumph in impossible situations, what could a heart of thanksgiving to the Lord do in our own lives?

While most of us aren’t facing a war, or prison, or death, we may be facing other, more personal trials. Could giving thanks not keep our eyes focused on our Father of the heavenly lights, from whom every good and perfect gift flows? And could giving thanks not be a gateway that would open our hearts to God’s joy and love and triumph in impossible situations?

I think so.

Another bit of peculiar timing I love is that Thanksgiving is just weeks before Christmas. Observing a time of giving thanks to God for all we’ve been blessed with might just keep us from allowing greed and materialism and self-importance to swallow up a pure and grateful heart as we (and our children) head into Christmastime, or any time.

Now, let’s time travel into the future just a bit…

***

We’re in heaven, living a life more full of love and joy than we ever could have imagined. God has wiped every tear from our eyes, and there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain. 

We’ve received the eternal inheritance we’d been promised could “never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” (1 Peter 1:4-6)

Truly, we have more to be thankful for, more treasures in this life and in heaven – more than we can see with our eyes, and infinitely more than could ever be contained in this life – than we have time to voice them.

Go ahead, I dare you to try…

 

Heavenly Father, we are filled with thanksgiving for all you’ve blessed us with, and all the blessings you have yet to show us. Thank you for your immeasurably gracious love, for our salvation from certain death, for your continual presence, your faithfulness, and for our eternal home in heaven with You. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

So Much More to be Thankful For

Posted on by Dorci

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.
Worship the Lord with gladness;
come before Him with joyful songs.
Know that the Lord is God.
It is He who made us, and we are His;
we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.
Enter His gates with thanksgiving
and His courts with praise;
give thanks to Him and praise His name.
For the Lord is good and His love endures forever;
His faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100

 

Yes, we have much to be thankful for.  We can all look around and see the many ways we’re blessed.  But as God’s children, we have so much more.  Right now we still most easily see with our eyes, but God knows that the temporary things of this life will leave us wanting, and so He continually invites us to see with our hearts.

“For we walk by faith, not by sight.” 2 Cor. 5:7  “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  Hebrews 11:1

And what we do not yet see is all God is building for us, inside our hearts and souls, and inside His kingdom that is to come – our future and forever home with Him.

No matter what’s going on in our lives right now – the pain, the heartache, the sickness, the missing of our loved ones – by God’s Spirit we can choose to see with the eyes of our hearts all God has done, is doing, and will continue to do. 

Through our struggles God draws near to us, and calls us to draw nearer to Him.  He speaks to us in our pain; He loves us in our sickness, comforts us in our grief, and has filled us with a deep and lasting joy nothing can take way.  Through it all He builds a powerful faith on the foundation of Christ that will bring us a future reward we can only dream of, for now. Those are the true blessings so easily overlooked, yet will bring us a future reward that will outshine anything we can see with our eyes.  

We can join as one voice with our brothers and sisters in Christ and look up.  Shout for joy to the Lord for His magnificent love He’s showered on us, for sending His Son to die in our place, for filling us with His Spirit to comfort us, minister to us, heal and restore us, lead us, give us wisdom and peace, and to give us gifts to use to bless the Body. 

To preserve us until the day we see the Lord face to face, and to be filled with the hope that He’s prepared for us a home with Him where we will live in peace and safety with no end.

We can enter into worship with thanksgiving, not just for the things we see, but for the riches we have in Christ, both now and waiting for us.

God’s made us His own and called us His children, and we know that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Nothing on earth compares to that, and for that we can truly give thanks.

What are you thankful for?

Nice Try, Sheldon

Posted on by Dorci

Every once in a while you hear someone say they don’t believe in God or the Bible because, they say, the Bible has contradictions.  Most people would probably be hard-pressed to actually name one, but as I watched an episode of Young Sheldon – the television show about a budding scientist and atheist who is forever exasperating his Christian mother by raising his hand in the middle of church to ask the pastor a question – he asked one particular question I thought was intriguing and I took it as a challenge.

 

In the middle of the service, Pastor Jeff quotes Jacob in Genesis 32:30, “For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”

Sheldon immediately turns to his mother and says in all his precociousness, “Is this an appropriate time to mention that John 1:18 says, ‘No man hath seen God at any time.’ Who’s right? Jacob or John?”

 

Hm.  Who is right?

So I started with Genesis, jumped to the beginning of chapter 32 and read to the end of it. There’s a lot going on in these verses, so I’ll keep my answer focused on the immediate action Pastor Jeff quoted.

Jacob is on his way to meet up with his brother Esau, and he’s a little freaked out. It’s nighttime and he’s alone, when suddenly a Man appears and wrestles with Jacob until dawn.  After refusing to let the Man go until He blesses him, which He does, “Jacob called the name of the place Peniel (meaning Face of God): ‘For I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.'”

Then I flipped over to the book of John, chapter 1. John begins by describing the God/Man Jesus – the Word, the Logos, or expression of the Father – that He was in the beginning, that He was with God, and that He was God.  He goes on to describe the deity of the Man, Jesus Christ, that He is the Light born into this world by the will of God.

And then John goes on to say “No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.”

Of course Jacob and John are both right.

Jacob saw God in the form of a Man.  In fact he wrestled with Him all night.  (Ever wrestled with God in prayer?)  Jacob was able to handle seeing and dealing with God in this humbled form covered by flesh.

So when John says no one has seen God at any time, he is saying no one has seen the full glory of the Almighty God (but the Son has shown Him to us).

Even Moses was only allowed to see the back of God.

There have been many times I’ve casually read a portion of scripture that seemed to make no sense at all.  It didn’t line up with my preconceived idea of who God is, or it seemed to contradict another part of scripture.  By now though I know the Bible isn’t wrong. I am. 100% of the time.

Because I don’t understand it just means my mind is smaller than God’s. Any god whose mind is no bigger than mine is no God at all. And yet the grace of God has revealed Himself to us in His Son. 

Because our human understanding is limited, it takes the Spirit of God to interpret His Word and give us understanding.  I know that if I pray for wisdom, and really dig into God’s Word, study it and learn what it actually means, I’ll discover the Bible is never contradictory.  Not even between the Old Testament and the New. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever.  His Word is unerring and perfectly compatible with itself.

And by studying it my understanding of God grows, and so does my love for Him.

If you are reading this and you’ve kept your distance from God because you’ve heard the Bible has contradictions, maybe you even have something in particular in mind you believe is a contradiction, I encourage you to read it for yourself.  Seek out someone you believe might have the answer, or can dig into God’s Word with you to discover the truth.  There’s a website, Got Questions, that allows you to submit questions and also has a large archive of past articles.  And I’d be willing to give any questions you have a shot.

And for us who are believers, let’s keep studying God’s Word, or maybe we need to start.  There is a lot of teaching out there that is very unscriptural, even among some who seem to have authority, and we need to have a solid understanding of God’s Word, and discernment, so the enemy doesn’t deceive us, leading us to believe things about God that aren’t true, causing disillusionment and drawing us away from Him.

Let us emulate our Berean brothers and sisters, who were “of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  Acts 17:10-11 

There are a lot of treasures in there to uncover.

Happy studying,

 

Sunday Praise and a Prayer of Praise for Our Portion

Posted on by Dorci

“Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup;
you make my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance.
I will praise the Lord, who counsels me;
even at night my heart instructs me.
I keep my eyes always on the Lord.
With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Psalm 16:5-8

Dear Heavenly Father, we praise you, Lord, that of all the treasures in the earth, you are by far the greatest, and we are blessed beyond measure that you have given us the treasure of your presence, your love, your forgiveness, and your salvation. There is nothing else we need or want but you. We praise you for the peace you’ve poured into our lives, especially at those times when a storm threatens to take us, but your peace delivers us.  We praise you for counseling us when we don’t know which way to go, what to do, or what to say.  No matter how long we wait, you always lead us at just the right time. We listen for your voice as we patiently wait and learn to be still before you. There are many distractions in this life, but we will keep our eyes fixed on you, remaining steadfast until we see you face to face.  You are our portion, and in you we have everything.  In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.

Victory

Posted on by Dorci

“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
1 Corinthians 15:54-58

The apostle Paul wrote these passionate words in a letter to a church he founded in Corinth, Greece.  I can imagine the pleading of his heart as he wrote to encourage them to not be lured back into the materialistic and immoral world that churned around them.

He reminded them, and us, that this life is not all there is.  There is a resurrection, Christ being the first, and because of Him, we will follow.

We no longer belong to this world, and our victory is not here.  Our victory has already been won through Christ – the gift of our immortal souls and our resurrection to the next life with Jesus Christ, our Great Reward.

There is no shortage of attention-grabbers whether it’s social media, or the news, or just the busyness of our own lives.  They can suck us in, altering our perspectives from spiritual matters to earthly ones, and rob us of doing the work for which we’ve now been called.

Not much has changed in the 2000 years since Paul wrote to our brothers and sisters in Christ.

All of us who have put our faith in Christ know how difficult it can be to keep our hearts and minds focused on the Lord, especially when the world revels in sin all around us.

After all, sin looks fun, and we can feel like we’re missing out on something.  Well, we are, but nothing good.  We miss out on the consequences of those sins; we miss out on feeding our flesh but not our spirits; we miss out on a life of fruitlessness.  We miss out on leaving our faith behind.

But Paul reminds us there is so much more given to us in its place.

We have a real Christ-given hope that when our bodies die, our immortal souls will live on for eternity in the joy and peace of the presence of God.

While, tragically, those who lived for the temporary thrills of this short life will abandon all joy and peace when their mortal bodies die, and their souls will be given over to judgment and eternal death.

While we who have put our faith in Christ may have to give up a few things here, we already have the ultimate victory through the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, what do we do?  We get back to work.  We let go of the distractions of this world and stand firm in the faith, being about our Father’s business and fulfilling the calling given to each of us just as our brothers and sisters in Corinth did almost 2000 years ago.

“Let nothing move you.”

Nothing.  Don’t look to the left or to the right at what others are doing.  Don’t worry what others may say about your faith in God.  Don’t worry about what can be done to you, even if it means your earthly life, because we already have the victory.

Look to Christ and “give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.”

The text in the Greek puts it like this: “always abounding in the work of the Lord.”  

Abounding is the Greek word perisseuō which means “to superabound, be in excess, be superfluous; to excel, abundance, be the better, enough and to spare, exceed, excel, increase, be left, redound, remain (over and above).”

If there’s anything we should strive to do with excellence, it’s our work in the Lord.

He’s not only given us life, but He’s give us an abundant afterlife.  He sees our labor in His name, and He will reward us with eternal treasures worth far more than the trinkets of this life.

 

Heavenly Father, please help us keep our minds focused on you and not get sidetracked by the world or even by fear. Help us serve you with all our hearts, with the excellence that you deserve, that through our lives the world may see your love and grace and you may be glorified in the salvation of many. Thank you for the victory you’ve given us by clothing us with immortality and preparing a home for us in heaven with you. We praise your glorious Name, Jesus, and pray it all in your Name, amen.

The Power of Love

Posted on by Dorci

Hello

I am so excited to be back with you after my long hiatus.  God has been good and faithful and has done some great things in my heart and life during my break and I’m ready to resume our journey with the Lord together.

Life is hard, I know, and the world seems to be getting crazier, darker, and more unstable than ever, but I hope to encourage you to keep focused on Jesus.  He is our compass, our light, our peace, our truth, our hope.

He is our solid foundation.

When all else is shaky, we can walk surefootedly, and we can stand unwaveringly in our faith and trust of the God who loves us.

The enemy would have us get sidetracked, even in things that seem good, but none of it means a thing if our focus does not continue to be this:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”  Mark 12:30

This is the crux of our journey.

Everything we do hinges on God’s love – understanding and receiving it more and more as we grow in our relationship with Him, and loving Him back more today than we did the day before.

God’s love is where all true treasure lies.

From His love all good things flow.  With it we have the power to forgive, the confidence to pray, the strength to serve, the courage to do whatever He calls us to do.  And that’s when an enriched life begins.

As that love between us and God grows, nothing will be able to move us.  No surprise diagnosis, no financial upset, no personal attack, no shocking headline, nothing.

Walking with Jesus we can endure anything, and endure it with a peace and joy that can only come from Him.

During my break each one of you (followers on the website and on the Facebook page) have been prayed for individually, by name.  Let me tell you, it was an absolute joy to do that.  I hope the Lord blessed you through it as much as He did me.

Please feel free to ask for prayer anytime.  You are all on my heart and I love you all very much.

If you follow God Treasure through email, please consider liking the Facebook page where I post scripture and music and other things I may not necessarily post on the regular website.

And if you follow only through Facebook, since FB has a quirky policy of not getting the all the posts to all the followers, please consider signing up on the website – Godtreasure.net – to receive the blogs by email so you don’t miss any.  I promise, I won’t send you anything else! And the more you like the posts on FB, the more likely you are to get the posts.  And don’t forget to share!  

“The Lord bless you
and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you
and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you
and give you peace.”

Numbers 6:24-26

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It Ain’t Over ‘Til It’s Over

Posted on by Dorci

“Never stop learning.”

“Keep learning.”

“Don’t give up learning.”

I must have heard this admonition at least three or four times over the past couple of weeks.  Heaven help us if we ever come to the place where we think we have it all figured out.  Or that we’re too old or too young or too busy, or too anything to learn new things.

There is no where that is truer than in our walk with Christ on our journey through life.

God is always speaking, as long as we’re listening.

In Peter’s second letter to those living in faith in Christ, he writes:

“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge,  and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” 2 Peter 1:5-7

Faith is not a badge we put on at the moment of conversion as if the race were over and the rewards already given.  Faith is the starting point.  Then, with our faith in hand, we run the race.

Virtue

Live with high moral standards.  That is a daily, conscious effort in this morally-declining world.  Up is down, right is wrong and wrong is right.  But we know where to go to cut to the chase and find the absolute truth, and that is always God’s Word.

Knowledge

God tells us in scripture that we are to grow in the knowledge of Christ, grow in the wisdom and knowledge that Christ gives, and, interestingly, that husbands are to live in an understanding (knowledgeable) way with their wives.

Self-control

The more we allow the Holy Spirit to rein in our hearts and lives, the more we will learn to restrain ourselves from the things of the world that create division from Him, and vice versa.

Steadfastness

This is a cheerful, patient endurance through all our trials, ever-increasing in hope that through it all our God is molding us into the image of His Son.  We learn to wait – to wait for direction, to wait for discernment, to wait for rescue, to wait for healing, to wait on our God and know that He hears, He loves us, and His timing and ways are perfect.

Godliness

Simply, less of me and more of Him.

Brotherly affection

Daily we are to grow in our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Love

This is agape, the highest form of love. It is the pinnacle of sacrificial, unconditional love that puts ourselves on the alter to serve another.

To grow in these godly qualities takes a willingness to be humble.  It takes being able to admit when we’re wrong so we can repent and grow.  It is taking regular stock of our hearts through scripture as the Sword “penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb 4:12) 

It takes walking out of the shadows into the bright and baring light of Christ and letting Him examine us, burning off those ungodly traits through the fire of trial, and knowing that those same flames burn with His love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.

Why? Why do we want to do these things instead of just coasting through life, knowing that we have salvation at the end of it?  Peter tells us in the next verse:

“For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  2 Peter 1:8

I don’t know about you, but I want to be effective.  I want my life to count for good.  It was used for enough pain and sorrow before Christ graciously invaded my life.  I want to learn and grow and trip and get back up and try again, trust more, pray more, yield more, love more. 

In this one life I get, I want Christ to have His way in and through me. I want to learn the way of my Master and be prepared and unashamed when I meet Him face to face. 

But it won’t come by osmosis.

So I take the faith handed to me by the Holy Spirit, and together we run…

Grace and Peace in Abundance,

 

Gifts > Talents

Posted on by Dorci

“For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us.

If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith; if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead, do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully.” Romans 12:4-8

If you knew me very well you might think it funny that I have a strong desire to encourage people.  I don’t feel encouraged a lot of the time.  I feel a lot of other things like exhausted, frustrated, distressed and sometimes depressed.

But through all that haze of human struggle God has given me a gift of encouragement. That, to me, is amazing.

God delights to show Himself strong where we are weak.

And because it’s very obviously not my nature, but God’s, He gets all the glory.

Once the Holy Spirit placed that gift in my heart, it was up to me to yield myself to Him and allow Him to shine that light of encouragement through me.  And yet sometimes all I have to do is walk through a check-out line.

I was doing just that once years ago when I was a fairly new believer.  The store was crazy busy, all the lines were long, and I stood in one of them holding my new pair of shoes.

I finally…finally…finally reached the front of the line, and the poor cashier looked frazzled.  Her head was down, finishing up from the last customer. As she looked up and into my eyes, she stopped, smiled, chuckled a bit and said, “I felt better when I saw your face.”

Now, it was not me and it certainly was not my face, per se.  There were plenty of other perfectly nice faces that had gone through that line, and there was nothing about mine in particular that would comfort this overworked girl, except that it was the face of someone who was in love with Jesus and had been given the gift of encouragement.

It was the Holy Spirit, graciously and mercifully using that gift to shine His light of comfort from one of His children to, quite possibly, another.

That’s what spiritual gifts are for: the building up of the Body.

“Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and He distributes them to each one, just as He determines.” 1 Corinthians 12:7-11

So, lest any of us think we have no spiritual gifts, God’s Word tells us that if we are part of the body of Christ – if He is our Lord – then the Spirit has given each of us at least one gift for the benefit of the body. It’s not to keep for ourselves and it’s not to hide, but to share.

The Church is weakened when all its members are not fully using their God-given gifts for the benefit of one another.

 

One issue is that many times talents and gifts are misunderstood, and human talents are being used rather than spiritual gifts. Gifts of the Spirit are being minimized in favor of works of the flesh; pride is trumping humility and submissiveness to the Spirit of God.  And when that happens, the church becomes nothing more than a sing-a-long, but not true praise; nothing more than an inspirational teaching, though not Spirit-inspired; nothing more than a religious duty, but not actual worship. And we all suffer for it.

Human talents rely on our own personal knowledge, practice, understanding, strength and power.

Spiritual gifts are given and used strictly by the power of the Holy Spirit and our yieldedness to Him.  

God can give gifts to complement the talents He’s given us, but His gifts still work solely in the power of the Spirit.  

Gifts are given to us, not because of who we are, but in spite of it.

The Church needs our gifts.  We are each a brick in the Church of God with Christ as its Cornerstone.  Remove just one and though the foundation stands, the building falters.

If you don’t know what your gift or gifts are, I encourage you to pray and ask the Lord to show you. There are some tools that, with prayer, can help you find your spiritual gifts.  This is one: http://www.spiritualgiftstest.com/

And once you find your gift(s), ask the Lord to show you how He would have you use it for the building up of the body.  Beside our personal relationship with Christ, being used by the Lord and fulfilling His plan for us is perhaps the most rewarding blessing on this earth.

And may I add – let’s encourage each other in our gifts and allow ourselves to be built up by one another. We need each other right now, and we need the gifts God’s given to all of us.  There may be darker days coming for believers than we’ve seen in recent headlines and we need every spiritual gift to prepare and empower us and spur us on to victory.

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”  1 Thessalonians 5:11

Grace and Peace,

How to Find the Abundant Path

Posted on by Dorci

Here we are, standing at the beginning of a new year with countless paths before us, each with their own forks leading into valleys, mountaintops, hushed wooded groves, deep waters, blue skies.  Some would lead us closer to God, some further away. So how do we know which ones to take?  Which paths are the Lord’s, and how do we follow Him on His paths of abundance?

There is a way which seems right to a man, but the end of it is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12

There is a way which seems right…..

Too many times we make decisions based on what seems right, on what we feel at the time.  What we feel one day we may not the next, and making a decision based on our ever-changing feelings – or as the world might say, following your heart – can be disastrous, and lead us down a path full of snares.

So.  If we can’t make a decision properly based on what seems right to us, how do we know what really is right?

The word abundance in Psalm 65:11 is the Hebrew word deshen which means “the fat; figuratively abundance; specifically the fatty ashes of sacrifice.”

Genesis 4:4 talks about Abel’s offering to the Lord.  “And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering..”  Abel didn’t keep the first or the best for himself, giving the Lord his scrawny leftovers.  He brought the best of the best to give as a sacrifice to the Lord, and the Lord accepted it and the proof of His acceptance were the ashes.  The sacrifice was acceptable and good in the sight of  God.  It was a bountiful, generous, overflowing, richly abundant banquet between the Lord and Abel.

Fast forward a few thousand years to the hill of Calvary.  There is a cross, and on it the lamb of God.  God’s very best given as an acceptable sacrifice for our sins.

This Offering was an abundant, sufficient, once-for-all Sacrifice for our sins.

Only this Sacrifice was raised again on the third day and now lives to make intercession for us to the Father.  From Him all blessings, wisdom and direction to the very fullness of our sanctification lies with Christ.

Oh my dear friends, the abundant path is Christ Himself.

As you walk through the year, keep your eyes focused on Him.  Remember, this life is not about things, it’s not about climbing an imaginary success ladder, it’s about an ongoing, intimate relationship with our Abba Father.  He created us for fellowship with Him. Talk to Him and practice listening to His voice. And as you move through this life and aren’t sure which path to take, remember that He will never tell you to do anything contrary to His Word.  He IS the Word.

As you go, you’ll need to hold onto a few things.

Faith in God.

Not faith in circumstances, not faith in people, but keep your faith where it belongs: on the God who loves you, who hears your prayers, and is in the process of answering them according to His will  and His timing.  Never, ever give up.

Trust in God.

Trust is faith in action.  It’s where the rubber meets the road.  When God tells you to go there, or do that, will you trust Him enough to be obedient, even when it’s hard or even seems impossible?

Hope in God.

Hope will sustain you when nothing makes sense. Without it our souls wilt, we give up and we either make decisions in the flesh and move in the  wrong direction or we’ll stop moving altogether.  None of those will have a good outcome.  But hope will keep us encouraged, patient and joyful.

Love, for God and His people.

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”  1 Cor. 13:1-3

“The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:7-8

We have such a short time here on this earth.  If all we do is wrapped up in the holy love of the Lord, we will leave a legacy that reaches further than we can imagine, and we’ll lay up treasures in heaven that no one can fathom.

And what is true love?

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”  1 Cor. 13:4-8a

That is the abundant life.

In His good grace,