Go on to Possess what you want in Life

‘I have begun to give… begin to possess’ Deu 2:31

Is all ambition Vain and the Desire for Profit Evil?

At eighty years of age Caleb pleaded with Joshua to give him ‘this mountain.’ And elsewhere the poet has put these words in God’s mouth: ‘I am the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.’ And so sometimes we don’t get what we desire from God because we are afraid to persist, or we are too overwhelmed by our sense of apparent greed.

Many Christians are uncomfortable with the issues of ambition and wealth acquisition or prosperity. Perhaps some were ‘filthy rich’ at one time before hard times set in, and the experience left them permanently disillusioned about the beauty of life.

Again we have all read the stories of people who struck a windfall or won a large lottery. But they are not usually very happy stories.

Or perhaps one is gifted with a poetic turn of mind, and in their search for the ideal, they have tried everything in life before finally they landed on the perfect treasure, and it was only then that the demons in their minds were quieted.

And so one trenchant idealist says, ‘I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, What doeth it? … Therefore I hated life; because the work that is wrought under the sun is grievous unto me: for all is vanity and vexation of spirit… Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun…’ (Ecc 2).

And so Paul too would count everything as dung.

There will always be a big Chasm between our Time and their Time

Time is dynamic and not static. So Abraham, in his days, kept large heads of cattle, and in addition servants were born in his own house. But in our day it is the ‘large heads’ of education, the stock market and the Protestant Ethic. And who can say God has not been gracious to us as he was with Abraham and his descendants?

There is a Sense of Contradiction in every aspect of our Lives

To miss this fact is to choose a perplexed life, and it is to miss the joy of our humanity. So quipped the philosopher, ‘Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself over wise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself?’ (Ecc 7:16).

Many times the simplest thing to do is believe, but O how hard!

‘Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word’ (Psa 106:24), and ‘Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?’ (Psa 78:19). 

Might we have overanalyzed our problems until we cannot tell the common from the supernatural anymore?

‘Wherefore be ye not unwise,’ the apostle admonishes, ‘but understanding what the will of the Lord is’ (Eph 5:17), and ‘Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth’ (2Ti 2:15).

And so some are called to be dreamers in this life and some are called to be entrepreneurs.

‘But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that,’ adds the apostle, and, ‘Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.’ (See Desiring God, Meditations of a Christian Hedonist by John Piper).

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty

A tree when winter strikes, withers. But it is not usually the death of life, but only the death of a season. So what beliefs do you believe today and why do you believe them? Are they still valid today or they are outdated? And can you change? ‘And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it’ (Psa 90:17). And ‘where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty’ and so we can begin to be changed from one image of his glory to another.

And so what ‘glory’ are you short of at present dear friend? Is it peace? Is it healing? Is it knowledge or wisdom? Is it freedom? Is it joy? Is it patience? Is it riches? Is it happiness? Name it. But God’s command is that we should begin to possess it right now. Is the Jordan river still overflowed and are we afraid we are going to drown if we cross it? ‘And he brought us out from thence, that he might bring us in.’ God is still faithful. He has said it and will he not do it? ‘He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?’ (Rom 8:32).Tonight let us do a different thing. Let us just believe.