Good morning, all!
Father, You own the cattle on a thousand hills and there is nothing that doesn’t belong to You. Our prayer today is that we would pursue You, pursue faith, pursue love so that we would know true wealth. We know that every good and perfect gift comes from You, we can’t earn it, and we can’t lose it, thank you Lord, Amen.
Psalm 66
9 Which holdeth our soul in life, and suffereth not our feet to be moved.
Our lives are in Your hands, and You keep our feet from being moved.
10 For thou, O God, hast proved us: thou hast tried us, as silver is tried.
You have tested us, O God; you have purified us like silver.
11 Thou broughtest us into the net; thou laidst affliction upon our loins.
You captured us in Your net and laid this affliction on our mind.
12 Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water: but thou broughtest us out into a wealthy [place].
You caused others to walk on us and it felt like we went through fire and flood, but You brought us to a wealthy place that NO man could buy.
Bottom line
Are you wealthy? What is wealth? Do we measure it by our bank account? I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say God’s wealthy place is NOT a bank-Ha! We know how the world measures wealth, but God’s NOT interested in money, after all He did say blessed are the POOR for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…He didn’t say blessed are the rich. Crazy, reason and logic would say how can that be? The real question is how poor are you today? Selah…Hebrew word that God uses to get us to pause and reflect for a minute before responding. We should all be spiritual bankrupt so that we need God all the time and in every situation. Based on God’s truth the less we have the better off we are, we get heaven. I mean what’s worth more than that? Notice we didn’t just waltz into the wealthy place, in fact, God said our feet didn’t MOVE so how did we get there? FAITH!!! How important is faith? Well scripture says without it we can’t PLEASE God…He don’t want NO weaklings…He’s raising warriors NOT immature children that get moved by fleeting emotions. Nothing we face in this life should MOVE us. We should trust God and live by faith. So how do you and I do that? Well, He tells us in the very next verse…PROVED & TRIED…we’re proven to have self-control and not react as the world and although our patience is tried, we’re NOT impulsive and rash we WAIT on God and don’t take matter into our own hands. I mean if God expects us to live by faith shouldn’t that be reflected in our lifestyle? Shouldn’t our response look and sound different from the world? If we don’t THINK differently, we’ll never LIVE differently, this is why God lays the affliction on our loins…MIND. This is a mental affliction NOT a physical affliction, and what is this affliction? Next verse, people step on our heads, and it feels like we’re being swept away like a flood and a roaring fire…NO control of the circumstances and removal of anything that can’t withstand the heat. Joseph’s family stepped all over him, they hated him, they lied about him, they got rid of him and sold him into slavery and eventually landed in prison…tell me they didn’t go over his head…tell me Joeseph didn’t go through a flood and a fire.
[Luk 22:44 NIV] And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground. The servant is NOT above his master, Jesus was hated, betrayed, denied, the pain of His loins was so great it dropped as blood…great affliction. But he was proven and tried, He did NOT move his feet…His position. What is His position? What got Him into the wealthy place?
[Luk 23:34 NIV] Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. You see God changed Joseph through the difficulties, he became a new person…God gave him a new life, a life of FAITH. How did faith make him different?
[Gen 47:11 NLT] So Joseph assigned the best land of Egypt–the region of Rameses–to his father and his brothers, and he settled them there. Joseph did the exact opposite of what his brothers did to him, Joseph spoke well of them to Pharoah, then he called for the family to live with him in Egypt. Live with him? After they rejected him…it’s called FORGIVENESS it’s the very FIRST step required to live by FAITH. What next? Joseph gave his brothers the BEST he had and helped them get settled. True faith will give their BEST even when you’ve been treated the worst…this is a wealthy place…can’t nobody afford that kind of faith…the only way to access the wealthy place is to FORGIVE and when you do the BEST will pour out of you…if it ain’t your best you haven’t found the wealthy place.
Point to Ponder
When the prodigal son was at his worst, he told his father he wasn’t worthy to be called his son, what did the father do? [Luk 15:22 KJV] But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe, and put [it] on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on [his] feet. Nothing gets in the way of the Father’s love not even our foolish mistakes, we always get His best!
Let’s all enter the wealthy place, In Him Phil
Faith – Family – Friends
