Good morning Divine Perspective Readers. Trust you had a great time in Church yesterday… I thoroughly did. There’s such a blessing attached to fellowshipping together with the saints that solitary worship cannot afford. So if you presently do not have a Church you attend faithfully, please get a Bible teaching (not just believing, anyone can believe the Bible, even demons do) Church and become a committed and serving member of that Church. The local Church is God’s plan for His family while we’re on earth. Anyone or organization that seeks to thwart the wisdom of God in setting up the local Church is “looking for God’s trouble”, to put it mildly. There are some gifts and graces that God has deposited in each of His children that can only find expression in connection with other gifts in other believers in an assembly. It’s like the links in a chain, they were not designed to function in isolation. No link can make a chain, it takes the whole set of links to make a chain. You sometimes have no idea what you’re capable of doing until you get into a company of believers. That’s enough exhortation for any “nomadic” Christian… hehe.
So we continue on New Creation Prayers today and i trust we would have a great time gleaning from God’s Word. For now, we have concluded thoughts on the Hope Of His Calling, today we begin exploring what Paul meant in Eph 1:18, when he said “…that we may know…what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” Before I understood clearly what this verse of scripture meant, I used to wonder about how God would have “inheritance” in human beings. From a very cultural and natural perspective, all I saw inheritance as were things that were tangible, valuable and visible to the eyes. Things like houses, estates, cars, companies, factories, lands, etc… that’s why a lot of disputes occur among relatives over the wealth of a deceased rich man. The reason for such disputes is because generally, people’s perception of value is tied only to the things they can see with their eyes, touch with their hands and taste with their mouth. It’s hard to paint a picture of greater value to a man that is limited to his 5 physical senses, 1 Cor 2:14 makes it clear that a natural man cannot understanding the things of God, and he can’t even know them because they are spiritually discerned. That’s why this particular prayer is a very profound one. It says that the eyes of our understanding be enlightened so that we may know what is the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. All these sound like fables to a man that has little or no regard for spiritual things. Spiritual things are far more valuable than all the physical elements of this world put together.
Gen 25:5 (KJV) And Abraham gave ALL THAT HE HAD unto Isaac. 6 But unto the sons of the concubines, which Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and sent them away from Isaac his son, while he yet lived, eastward, unto the east country.
This verse of scripture is a powerful picture of the value system of a man that regards spiritual things above material things. Abraham gave gifts to his concubines. In contemporary terms, those would be cars, houses, estates, lands and heavy shares in multinationals. He gave those to his concubines and their sons, but to Isaac, Bible records that he gave ALL HE HAD. That doesn’t make any logical sense. If he had already given his gifts to the other sons, what did he have left to give Isaac? More so, even if he had some things left to give to Isaac, the Bible wouldn’t have referred to it as ALL HE HAD, it would rather have been “ALL HE HAD LEFT“. But again, the verity of the scriptures cannot be overemphasized, everything in the Bible makes spiritual sense if properly analyzed. Abraham indeed gave gifts to his concubines and their children and then he turned to Isaac and gave him ALL HE HAD. Abraham understood that it was the “ALL HE HAD” that produced all his “gifts“. Abraham knew that even if he gave the concubines and their sons practically everything tangible and material that he had, that as long as he gave Isaac the producer of all those material things, then it would only be a matter of time before Isaac would have all the materials and still possess the substance that produced them. That’s the wisdom of God at work in a man of covenant. For everything tangible on the outside, there is such a thing called the substance of all things, and it resides in the realm of the spirit. When the eyes of our understanding is enlightened, we will begin to fully come to an awareness of the riches of the glory of God’s inheritance inside the saints. Boy!!! that just gets me pumped, God has got inheritance in me. God has got a glorious inheritance in me, God has got a rich and glorious inheritance in me. Glory to God. When our eyes are open to these realities, our prayer points radically begin to change. In the old testament, the thing Abraham gave Isaac which was tagged as “ALL HE HAD”, was “THE BLESSING“. The Patriarchs had what was known as THE BLESSING. This was the determinant of the destiny of their offspring. Without it, their children were stranded, but with it, their children could command provision, security and abundance. This was the biggest deal for the seed of any patriarch. Esau sought for THE BLESSING with tears, but it was too late, Jacob had absconded with it. One of the most powerful things God can do to a man is to increase his ability to perceive value when it’s not yet obvious. Now that’s a good prayer to pray isn’t it?
Heb 11:24-27 (KJV) By Faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; 25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season; Esteeming the reproach of Christ GREATER RICHES than the TREASURES OF EGYPT: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward. 27 By Faith, he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured as SEEING THE INVISIBLE.
One of the major lessons God will teach a believer is to show him the difference between GREATER RICHES and the TREASURES OF EGYPT. Many people are after the treasures of Egypt, which is good in itself, but it should never be pursued at the expense of greater riches. If you seek after the greater riches, then you will not lack the treasures of Egypt. Remember that the night that the Israelites were to leave Egypt, they collected plenty gold from the Egyptians. God has no issues with the treasures of Egypt, as long as you don’t lose sight of the greater riches. For the guys in the old testament, the greater riches was THE BLESSING, but it’s much more than THE BLESSING for us in the new testament era. This GREATER RICHES is what we would spend some time digging into in our subsequent posts. Have fun during this season and spend quality time with family and loved ones. Merry Christmas in advance. Please remember to share. 🙂
