"I WILL GIVE YOU RICHES"
Who among us has not dreamed of winning the lottery? We drive down the highway and see one of those billboards advertising this week’s mega lottery for 261 ga-zillion dollars, and we’re tempted to think, "I could go for that." We begin to imagine how much better off our lives would be if only we could hit "the big one." They tease us even further by reminding us that "you can’t win if you don’t play."
The last of the big time spenders plunk down a dollar or two so as not to deny fate the opportunity to give us riches beyond our wildest dreams. For others, maybe it’s more like $25, $50 or even $100 reaching out for that "brass ring." When the fortune gets big enough for a lottery, people line up around the block; in spite of the fact that for every winning ticket in the lottery, there are countless losers.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most if not all of us have a strange fascination with money. We tend to think of it as the solver of all problems. We think it can be our source of happiness. Even though the Beatles sang "Money Can’t Buy Me Love," money may "buy" you friends; especially in Washington DC, where they prefer to listen to Willie Nelson instead, who sang "If You’ve Got The Money, Honey, I’ve Got The Time."
Our fascination with money is somewhat counterintuitive. As they say, "you can’t take it with you." In Ecclesiastes, Solomon observed that we strive to accumulate wealth so that it can be left to heirs. In the meantime, there never seems to be enough of it anyway. When asked how much money does a person need to feel like he’s got enough, John D. Rockefeller answered, "about a nickel more than he’s got."
God has a better plan for us than that. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God says, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." The Book of First Corinthians tells us that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, the heart of man has not conceived, of the great things God has in store for those who love Him. In other words, God is saying to us, "I will give you riches."
The heart of God towards us is reflected in a pastoral prayer that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to pray. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
When it comes to riches, sometimes the pendulum between spiritual concerns and worldly concerns swing widely for some Christians. Some Christians tend to emphasize the spiritually oriented blessings of God, while others focus on the more materially oriented blessings. As in many cases, there is probably a good balance somewhere between the two extremes. God can and will bless His people in both ways.
It is no big deal for God to supply our material needs. Since God made the world in the first place, and the Bible says the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, it makes sense that God is able to meet our day to day needs. Indeed, Jesus said so when He said that God clothes and feeds His people, and that our concern should chiefly be to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Many people are familiar with the stories of Jesus feeding thousands of people with just a few morsels of bread and fish. Those are not allegorical or otherwise made up accounts, they actually happened. The prophet Elisha did pretty much the same thing. One point we can derive from these historical accounts is that from God’s point of view, caring for our material concerns is really no big deal at all. When it comes to our material needs God can easily say, "I will give you riches."
As important as our day to day needs are, the fact of the matter is that they are temporal, meaning that they won’t last. Most of us can recall how we once thought that some material concern was of overwhelming importance to us, but that now we give it no thought. We might not even remember it! At the same time, our material needs vary from time to time as our circumstances change. We can go from "boom to bust" more than once; just ask Donald Trump.
The proclamation of the "health and wealth gospel" has always been popular, and still is today. It is the basic message of one of the largest churches in America today. But if our focus is only on what material riches God can give us, we will be missing out on a lot. The spiritual riches that God wants to pour into our lives are of a kind that simply cannot be obtained anywhere else or from any other source.
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It is absolutely astounding to consider how much power poured into our lives when we embraced Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Jesus knows and understands; He said "greater things shall you do, because I go to the Father."
It may be that Jesus was suggesting that His followers would perform even more spectacular miracles than He did; alternatively He might have been saying that since we have more time than a brief three year stint that we would accomplish more; or He might have been indicating that collectively we as a group would do more than He did. However we understand what Jesus meant, the fact is that He was conferring power to His people.
Each of us wants to have power, and for most of us most of the time, we desire power for good reasons. We want to be able to do things for the people around us as well as ourselves. Followers of Jesus have more power than we generally realize. For example, we have the power of prayer. The Bible says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Christians have power over demonic forces. The disciples of Jesus were stunned and thrilled to report to Jesus that "even the demons are subject to us in Your name." The Bible reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers of darkness in spiritual places. That battle is lopsided in our favor. Scriptural accounts, as well as personal testimonies of Christians around the globe and through the years, affirm the truth that Martin Luther wrote about in the wonderful hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. "And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed, His truth to triumph through us."
It may be that some Christians would have to admit that they lack much personal knowledge or experience of His glorious riches in their own lives. That is not God’s will. One reason some Christians may be lacking in God’s blessings is that they don’t think or know to ask for it. One good way for each of us to experience more of His glorious riches in our lives is to personalize Paul’s pastoral prayer, substituting first person pronouns in the place of second person pronouns, as follows:
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen me with power through His Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. AMEN!
The last of the big time spenders plunk down a dollar or two so as not to deny fate the opportunity to give us riches beyond our wildest dreams. For others, maybe it’s more like $25, $50 or even $100 reaching out for that "brass ring." When the fortune gets big enough for a lottery, people line up around the block; in spite of the fact that for every winning ticket in the lottery, there are countless losers.
Let’s be honest with ourselves. Most if not all of us have a strange fascination with money. We tend to think of it as the solver of all problems. We think it can be our source of happiness. Even though the Beatles sang "Money Can’t Buy Me Love," money may "buy" you friends; especially in Washington DC, where they prefer to listen to Willie Nelson instead, who sang "If You’ve Got The Money, Honey, I’ve Got The Time."
Our fascination with money is somewhat counterintuitive. As they say, "you can’t take it with you." In Ecclesiastes, Solomon observed that we strive to accumulate wealth so that it can be left to heirs. In the meantime, there never seems to be enough of it anyway. When asked how much money does a person need to feel like he’s got enough, John D. Rockefeller answered, "about a nickel more than he’s got."
God has a better plan for us than that. Through the Prophet Jeremiah, God says, "For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." The Book of First Corinthians tells us that the eye has not seen, the ear has not heard, the heart of man has not conceived, of the great things God has in store for those who love Him. In other words, God is saying to us, "I will give you riches."
The heart of God towards us is reflected in a pastoral prayer that the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul to pray. For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
When it comes to riches, sometimes the pendulum between spiritual concerns and worldly concerns swing widely for some Christians. Some Christians tend to emphasize the spiritually oriented blessings of God, while others focus on the more materially oriented blessings. As in many cases, there is probably a good balance somewhere between the two extremes. God can and will bless His people in both ways.
It is no big deal for God to supply our material needs. Since God made the world in the first place, and the Bible says the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, it makes sense that God is able to meet our day to day needs. Indeed, Jesus said so when He said that God clothes and feeds His people, and that our concern should chiefly be to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Many people are familiar with the stories of Jesus feeding thousands of people with just a few morsels of bread and fish. Those are not allegorical or otherwise made up accounts, they actually happened. The prophet Elisha did pretty much the same thing. One point we can derive from these historical accounts is that from God’s point of view, caring for our material concerns is really no big deal at all. When it comes to our material needs God can easily say, "I will give you riches."
As important as our day to day needs are, the fact of the matter is that they are temporal, meaning that they won’t last. Most of us can recall how we once thought that some material concern was of overwhelming importance to us, but that now we give it no thought. We might not even remember it! At the same time, our material needs vary from time to time as our circumstances change. We can go from "boom to bust" more than once; just ask Donald Trump.
The proclamation of the "health and wealth gospel" has always been popular, and still is today. It is the basic message of one of the largest churches in America today. But if our focus is only on what material riches God can give us, we will be missing out on a lot. The spiritual riches that God wants to pour into our lives are of a kind that simply cannot be obtained anywhere else or from any other source.
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. It is absolutely astounding to consider how much power poured into our lives when we embraced Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. Jesus knows and understands; He said "greater things shall you do, because I go to the Father."
It may be that Jesus was suggesting that His followers would perform even more spectacular miracles than He did; alternatively He might have been saying that since we have more time than a brief three year stint that we would accomplish more; or He might have been indicating that collectively we as a group would do more than He did. However we understand what Jesus meant, the fact is that He was conferring power to His people.
Each of us wants to have power, and for most of us most of the time, we desire power for good reasons. We want to be able to do things for the people around us as well as ourselves. Followers of Jesus have more power than we generally realize. For example, we have the power of prayer. The Bible says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.
Christians have power over demonic forces. The disciples of Jesus were stunned and thrilled to report to Jesus that "even the demons are subject to us in Your name." The Bible reminds us that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against rulers of darkness in spiritual places. That battle is lopsided in our favor. Scriptural accounts, as well as personal testimonies of Christians around the globe and through the years, affirm the truth that Martin Luther wrote about in the wonderful hymn A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. "And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed, His truth to triumph through us."
It may be that some Christians would have to admit that they lack much personal knowledge or experience of His glorious riches in their own lives. That is not God’s will. One reason some Christians may be lacking in God’s blessings is that they don’t think or know to ask for it. One good way for each of us to experience more of His glorious riches in our lives is to personalize Paul’s pastoral prayer, substituting first person pronouns in the place of second person pronouns, as follows:
I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen me with power through His Spirit in my inner being, so that Christ may dwell in my heart through faith. And I pray that I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. AMEN!
posted by Pastor Monahan at 12:53 PM
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