And besides
You, I desire nothing on earth. Psalm 73:25
Precious Ones, who love
the Lord,
Last week I shared about God
being our Shield and what this icon reveals about who Jesus is and that His
plan is for you to know Him personally as He deals very personally in your
life.
As I am reading God’s word,
the vowels always seem to jump out, waving their arms like a pinwheel and shouting, “Pay
attention to me”! In the Ephesians
6:10-18 passage there are many vowels. This is one of the key passages in
scripture teaching us spiritual warfare, and what is expected of us in detailed
instructions. Ephesians is rich with Truth in the first chapters before He
even gets to the specifics in chapter 6. How can we appropriate these truths?
What are we able to trust
Him for? What must we appropriate?
appropriate: To
take possession of or make use of exclusively for oneself
To appropriate does not necessarily mean to gain
something new but to set aside for our practical possession something that
already belongs to us. In order to appropriate, for our daily walk, what is
ours in Christ, there are two facets that are essential.
One: to see what is already
ours in Christ
Two: we must be aware of our
‘need’ for it
W. R. Newell
wrote: Paul does not ask a thing of the saints in the first three chapters of
Ephesians but just listen while he proclaims that wondrous series of great and
eternal FACTS concerning them; and not until he has completed this catalogue of
realities about them does he ask them to do anything at all!
Once we see what is ours in
Christ Jesus, our practical need will cause us to hunger for more, to
appropriate Christ’s supply for our need. When you think about our life here on
earth, it is set up so we will continuously be discovering our ‘need’ of Christ,
from morning to night! Every time our back is against the wall and our need
presses and crushes, we discover more of our helplessness. Our inability to live the Christian
life by our own mega efforts, forces us to acknowledge we cannot produce wisdom
or strength or love or anything else required! It is then we hunger for the
inflow of His supply and are ready to turn to Him. As He meets our need we
prove His sufficiency, there is a new showing forth of His glory through us.
The reality is
that seeing and needing free us from childish efforts to
accomplish in our own strength what God has already provided, into a responsible
walk of faith. Ms (paraphrase)
Only what is of faith is pleasing to Him. Faith takes us from
a ‘help me’ attitude to that of giving thanks for what He has already done and
readily provides; from begging to appropriating. We continue to ask God to
bless us in this and bless us in that when it is already done. He has blessed
us with every spiritual blessing in Christ!
(In Christ) His grace is
sufficient. A truth to appropriate daily. Life is difficult and when trouble
hits God may feel far away as though He has left us to face things alone. He
has better things to do than bother with us. The enemy comes in like a flood
and we are told in Ephesians 6:10-18 how to meet that rush by satan to undo us.
In our very trouble, no matter the source, it is time to stand strong in faith
and live our songs. See it as an opportunity to prove His faithfulness and
bring Him glory.
So far so good.
The believer sees what he possesses in Christ, and the need enables him to
reach out and confidently appropriate and accept His provision for the need. It
must be based on clear cut scriptural Truth. Now comes the critical phase, the key to it all. In most instances of
appropriation there is a waiting period between the acceptance and the
receiving- often of years. Our responsibility is to patiently wait on Him
during the time necessary for Him to work into our character, our life, that
which we have appropriated in Christ. mjs
We must be rooted.
A farmer planted an orchard
along the borders of his field and along the mountain stream, on the other side.
They grew, finally bearing fruit. He gathered some of the harvest, along the
field orchard, to taste its fruit, but quickly spit it out, as it was inedible and
bitter. He then picked fruit from the orchard by the mountain stream. It’s fruit
was sweet and delicious. He reasoned that the fruit was affected by the
nutrition of the root.
We must be
rooted in the Spirit to appropriate His provision. For a life rooted in self is like being planted in a poor,
rocky soil lacking nutrition. It will produce bitterness, immorality, strife,
and a wasted life.
“A
good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit.” Luke 6:43
‘The Lord is
looking for a man weak enough to use and He found me.’ Hudson
Taylor
‘It is not about what we do
for Christ, not even a passion for souls, it is about a passion for Him, for
Jesus Himself. Nothing, nothing, nothing, can take the place of loving Him,
seeking Him, adoring Him, obeying Him, and spending time pursuing Him out of
love. I just want to kneel and drink in His Presence, His sweetness and purity
and love.
You LORD are
Jehovah Jira my Provider. You have not forgotten I am needy and hopeless
without Your continuous loving watch-care over me. Thank You for every failure, sorrow, affliction,
disappointment, and every broken plan and dashed hope that brings me to
helplessness and the end of trusting myself. There is nothing but goodness in
You and I am reminded You wrap every trial in Your loving kindness. I am
blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Teach me LORD to appropriate all You have
provided in Your plan for me. It is true, You are good, Lord, all the time. I
love You Abba, my Abba.
az
