"Abundant Life"

"I will meditate in thy precepts, and have respect unto thy ways." (Psalms 119:15)

 O how I long for heaven! In the meantime, this life is meant to be used to proclaim God's great love and mercy, in any way that God allows me to proclaim it. When it comes to living an abundant life, it must be a life that is determined to walk in the ways the God would have us to walk. What that means for those of us that are blessed with abilities to contribute, is that we do so freely and joyfully, without asking for anything in return. After all, it is all God's resources, not our own; He allows us to be a conduit for all that comes into our lives. This is what the Lord has put upon my heart this morning, that I push that notion of shutting down out of my mind, and I press on by doing everything He leads me to do. There are some things that require us to stay in the game; let's just say that my life is not well suited for pulling out at this particular moment. I still have some things to do; some of which require some serious resources, like about $200K plus in debt I need to settle. Those of you who might know my situation, know what I have been doing for the last eight and half years; now it is time for phase two of the process; and with God's help, this debt will be settled also. I refuse to try and get out of paying what I owe; I do not believe that is what God wants us to do, because if we commit our way to Him, He will allow us the ability to do what is right. Here is the thing about having respect for God's ways: His ways are aways right; they might not appear easy, but they are always right! That was the message from last Sunday, the difference between during the good thing and the right thing; just because it might seem good, does not mean that it is the right thing to do. I actually heard another message along the same lines last night, it was about making promises to God. That might not seem to resemble the good and right topic, but when it comes to promising God with a vow, we had better be careful what we say; saying the thing that seems good, could cause us some serious issues. The right thing to do is to admit how miserably we failed, ask His forgiveness, and then commit to allowing Him to help us from failing again. If we do fail again, it is not because God allowed us to fail, but that we stopped allowing Him to help us. The worst thing we can do is to try and make God a promise that we will never do it again; because in doing so, we make it about some kind of ability we might have within us. We have no such power in this body to do any such thing on our own; as soon as we think we might, we are sitting ourselves up for a very big fall. If you need any proof of that, Peter is a really good example. Peter was so sure of himself, saying, "Lord, I would die for you!" Jesus, knowing the human heart, said, "Will you lay down your life for me? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till you have denied me three times." When we make that vow to God, I believe He knows right then and there that we will fail; but it is not God that will take us down over our failure, it will be our own failure to keep the vow that will cause us to fall. That is where meditating on God's precepts comes into play; the law of God shows us what we are and how much we need a Savior. We are unable to do anything on our own...

"But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it." (James 1:22-25) NLT