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A People Plundered - part 3 of 3 (Amplified Bible) Faithful to His Word, God allows man to determine whether that faithfulness is demonstrated in blessing or cursing. “I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curses; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live” {Deut 30:19}. Although the enemy of our souls entices us toward disobedience, it is we ourselves who determine the degree to which we receive and retain that which the Father offers. Like the prodigal, we may think ourselves prepared for our promised inheritance before we are mature enough to possess it wisely; and like the prodigal we may waste portions of our lives and that for which we should be willing to wait. Also like the prodigal who returned home, we have but to come to ourselves, repent of our self-indulgent willfulness and return to the Father’s loving heart and arms. Even the Son of God did not spring forth into instant maturity. Born as a babe, He grew into childhood and then into manhood. Only as the mature Son could He become the redemptive sacrifice for fallen man. What Adam and Eve had forfeited in the garden Christ Jesus redeemed that God’s original intent might yet become a manifested reality, a people created in God’s image and likeness. “God said, “let Us [Father, Son, and Holy Spirit] make mankind in Our image, after our likeness…” {Gen 1:26}. Enticed by the lie of the serpent, the woman yielded to the allurement of the natural realm, grasping and partaking of that which produced death. How often do we, too, clutch and consume the carnal and the forbidden instead of hungering for the eternal fruit that produces life? How easily do we lay aside truth for trinkets? True security for false? Life for death? How frequently do we rob ourselves of God’s manifested Presence as well as His blessings and gifts? Consumed with desires for material possessions, social prestige and individual importance, we withhold our hearts from Him, thereby plundering our own lives as well as the lives of others, even those of our own household. A surrendered heart yields a surrendered self-life and then surrendered possessions. In contrast, an unsurrendered heart clings to self-preservation and withholds that which it considers “mine.” Robbing God first of ourselves, we soon experience little or no conviction at further plunder. “Will a man rob or defraud God? Yet ye rob and defraud Me. [You have withheld your] tithes and offerings… You are cursed with the curse, for you are robbing Me, even this whole nation. Bring all the tithe (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I rebuke the devourer…for your sakes…” {Mal 3:8-11}. Eventually reaping the futility of a forfeited inheritance, we stand in amazed accusations at the emptiness of our souls. But to whom do we direct the accusations? At the deceiver through whom the temptation came? At the One Who allowed the temptation in order to prove our character and trust in Him? At the One Whose law we have blatantly ignored and disobeyed? Or at ourselves, the ones who bartered that which the Father had reserved for us? “For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life” {John 3:16}. The Father so loved that He gave His Son, and the Son so loved that He gave His life a ransom for many. As the precious and the purchased of the Father and the Son, are we not, therefore, to so love that we sacrificially give? At a secluded manger, though unprepared with outward gifts, the hillside shepherds gave themselves, first in their seeking, then in their worship, and finally in their testimony. Later, the wise men of the East also demonstrated that we must first bring to the One who is the Giver and Gift of Life that which is most precious and costly, our very selves. - Ruth French December Newsletter 2003 | To Be Humbled | The Most Wonderful Time of the Year | I Give You Me Pastor's Journal December 2002 | The End of the Beginning | A People Plundered part 3 of 3 |
Biblical Counseling for Leaders
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