Living At A Greater Level of Abundance...What it takes - PART 1
“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5 (NLT)
Over the years, I’ve read many teachings, books, and
articles by scholarly members of various Christian
denominations and communities. Some of them are not so keen
on the notion of Christians having an elevated level of
abundance. One rationale they use is that Christians should
be humble; and this humility, in their minds, can only be
achieved from a life lived meagerly and modest. I personally
don’t feel as though there’s anything wrong with living
modestly if that is your preference, but if more is required
in order for a person to make the most of themselves, I
believe they have the God-given right and privilege to seek
to obtain more from our Heavenly Father.
We all know the tremendously good news that Jesus
Christ gave us in John 10:10 (NKJV); he said, “The thief
does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life, and that they may have
it more abundantly.” We have it straight from the
Master’s lips. He came not only that we might have life, but
have a more than abundant one! Nothing can top this. It’s
the heart of the Father to see us go for the gusto and live
the best life that we are capable of living. This ought to
serve as your principle motivation, and every step that you
take to obtain what the Master has promised affirms your
faith in him.
As we talk about receiving more abundance from our
Heavenly Father, it’s impossible to begin a worthwhile
discussion without placing the greatest emphasis possible on
spiritual growth and maturity. Jesus Christ said in John
15:5 (NLT), “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.
Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much
fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” The spirit
of Christ is an inside job. His love, and all the other
extraordinary spiritual gifts that he has made available are
housed within us. When it comes to producing fruit, we can’t
do anything apart from the spirit that indwells us. The
spirit gives us the fuel to activate and walk in God’s
strength and power. Our job is to change our minds, hearts,
and souls so that we literally line up with who God says
that we are, with what God says we can do, and with the
blessings God says we can have.
As we seek to do this, we will inevitably find that
there’s some stuff going on in our minds, hearts, and souls
that has to be kicked to the curb. The reason why it has to
be kicked to the curb is because instead of helping us go
higher, this stuff creates a barrier between us and what God
has for us. Ephesians 4:30 (NKJV) says,
“And do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of
redemption.” The spirit that indwells us is a person.
He’s our teacher, advocate, and guide. We can’t get to the
place where God would have us to go without help from the
indwelling Holy Spirit. God has commanded us to do those
things that nurture our ability to perceive information from
the spirit within. If you’re looking at inappropriate things
on TV, listening to music that defiles and doesn’t lift you
up, thinking negative thoughts and making negative
confessions…these are all things that grieve the spirit.
If you’ll pray about it and ask Heavenly Father to
show the thing that is holding you back, He will do it. God
wants to help you to grow closer to Him. Jesus Christ said
in Matthew 7:7-11 (NIV),
“7 “Ask and it will be
given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door
will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives; the
one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door
will be opened.
9
“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a
stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good
gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in
heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”
God isn’t going to give us more than we can handle,
and the responsibility rests in our hands to ensure that we
rise up in our thinking, speaking, believing and behaving in
order to actuate that which God has promised. If you’ve got
an itsy bitsy mentality when it comes to the realm of what
you can achieve and receive, then it stands to reason that
all you can achieve and receive is the itsy bitsy.
Ephesians 3:20 declares, “Now to Him who is able to
do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that works in us.” We’ve got a
Great, Big, Wonderful God, and
He deals in the exceedingly
abundant, but we must be spiritually prepared to receive the
material, physical, relationship, and financial blessings
that God has in store for us. Preparation includes a very
practical side of things as well as the spiritual side. The
practical side is where some people become stuck or fall off
the wagon. There are things that God has commanded us to do
that He will not do for us. Some of us wait, and wait, and
wait. We claim that we're waiting on God, but He's waiting
on us. Our obedience is unequivocally necessary in order to
see wonderful things flow into our lives. We need to realize
that we have a very instrumental part to play in the
abundance that Christ made available. To witness greater
levels of it, there is no question that both spiritual and
practical engineering is key.
The Spiritual Side of Things
There are many Christians that are living the lives they’ve always dreamed about, but there are also those that are living far beneath their privilege and feeling as though they can’t catch a break. When someone asks them how they’re doing, they quickly respond, “Oh, I’m blessed!” but deep down this isn’t how they really feel. Some of us are feeling trapped by four walls of our troubling circumstances, with an impenetrable ceiling above us and a shaky foundation beneath us. We’re ashamed to say how we really feel because we want to put on a good front, one that doesn’t rob God of the glory He so lovingly deserves. We’re thankful for how far the Lord has brought us, but we can’t understand why we seem to be moving at a snail’s pace towards greater blessings and fulfillment.
There are many Christians that are living the lives they’ve always dreamed about, but there are also those that are living far beneath their privilege and feeling as though they can’t catch a break. When someone asks them how they’re doing, they quickly respond, “Oh, I’m blessed!” but deep down this isn’t how they really feel. Some of us are feeling trapped by four walls of our troubling circumstances, with an impenetrable ceiling above us and a shaky foundation beneath us. We’re ashamed to say how we really feel because we want to put on a good front, one that doesn’t rob God of the glory He so lovingly deserves. We’re thankful for how far the Lord has brought us, but we can’t understand why we seem to be moving at a snail’s pace towards greater blessings and fulfillment.
The long and short of it is that God has someplace for you to be, and a more intimate walk with Him through the indwelling Holy Spirit is the vehicle to transport you there. God is calling you to go higher in the spirit. You need more revelation about Jesus Christ, because this is the only way for you to move in confidence about your own ability and spiritual know-how. This call upon our lives is unrelenting, so we can try and bump up against it and make excuses to avoid it all we like, but the truth of the matter is that our circumstances will not change until we begin to accept that there’s a destiny with our names on it.
God’s flow of blessings are designed to move in the
direction of the individual who dares to step out in faith.
Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes to us by
hearing—perceiving, digesting, understanding—the Word of
God. You can’t get by only knowing what you know now. It was
good enough to bring you this far by faith, but it’s not
enough to carry you forward in the dynamic catapultian of
your destiny. 2 Peter 1:5-8 (ESV) says,
“For this very reason,
make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and
virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and
self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with
godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and
brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are
yours and are increasing, they keep you from being
ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ.” You can’t afford to be ineffective and
unfruitful if a greater level of abundance is your aim. You
have to expand and go higher in the Lord, and the only way
to accomplish this is to grow in spiritual ability.
When we’re babes in the Word, God’s grace allows us to
have a sort of kid in a candy store existence, where things
come to us almost effortlessly, but there will ultimately
come a time when the rubber meets the road. He will require
that we learn to digest meat, and stop feeding off of milk.
God wants a relationship with us; He wants us to learn to
interact with Him on a heart level. This means that we forge
a greater commitment to do those things that take us higher
in spiritual growth and maturity. As we do, our relationship
with Him through our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, will
flourish, and so will the blessings we expect.
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Scripture quotations are from the
Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001, 2007
by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NLT)
are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation,
copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights
reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King
James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture taken from The Message.
Copyright ©1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by
permission of NavPress Publishing Group.
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