The Promise of Abundance

UV 1736/10000 The Promise of Abundance
You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you: never again will my people be ashamed.
Joel 2 v 26
There is the promise of abundance running right through scripture even as the principle of scarcity rules in the world’ s economy. Seven states in India are reeling from drought conditions and millions are in desperate need of even drinking water and for water to irrigate crops. I read the scary forecast this morning that water will have to be imported by the year 2050. But in Joel, the Lord prophesies what Jesus reiterated later, “ I have come that you might have life and life in all its abundance. The uni-verse promises that we will have an abundance to satisfy our every need. We need to eat the Word daily until our minds and spirits are full or saturated by the Spirit of God. We will then perceive that every good thing we have in life is from the hands of the Lord and that He has been generous in the measure He has used to pour blessings into our lives.
We have a choice in life to focus on the locusts-the small worrisome things that eat into our sense of joy, peace and wonder or to focus on the locus- the Lord, giver and Redeemer of life - the source of all awesome wonders, amazing blessings, abundant provision, absolutely fail proof protection, gaurantor of eternal life. The above uni-verse begins to operate when we make the second choice. We need to constantly recall and enumerate the wonders the Lord has done in our lives right from the very beginning. It will cause us to praise Him with a deep sense of gratitude. Praise, worship and thanksgiving opens the floodgates of heaven. We worship the Lord not for His sake but for our own sake. When He sees our hearts and minds overflowing with thanksgiving, praise and prayer, He opens those floodgates and we will be literally flooded with blessings, wonders, victory and rejoicing. We will forget the years of shame and disgrace, the connected events and memories will fade away. The years that the locusts of destruction snapped away at our peace of mind, our inner joy and hope when we focussed not on the focus of our lives, the Lord Himself and instead focussed on our needs and meeting those needs. The times when we were unmindful of God and His provision, uncaring for His love and protection will pass away like a bad dream.

The Lord promises that “never again” will we have reason to feel ashamed. He will remove the memories of our guilt, our fears and worries to such an infinite distance that they can never again approach or attack us. He will satisfy us as with the choicest meats. Life is meant by the Lord to be a feast and not a famine or a house of mourning. We will have abundant spiritual food. Unlike physical food which satiates us after a point and makes us feel nauseated and wanting to throw up, the more spiritual food we have that Jesus provides us in His pastures, the greater is our hunger and thirst, the greater is our revelation, wisdom, love, understanding, joy and our blessing. Great knowledge of this world makes a person weary, sad and weird but greater and greater knowledge of the Lord and His Word makes us renewed, rejuvenated and keeps us rejoicing.

Prateep V Philip