“And let your soul delight in abundance.” Isaiah 55:2
In his devotional on Rev. 21:23, Charles H. Spurgeon wrote:
“Here we lean upon the friendly arm, but there they lean upon their Beloved and upon him alone. Here we must have the help of our companions, but there they find all they want in Christ Jesus. Here we look to the meat which perisheth, and to the raiment which decays before the moth, but there they find everything in God. We use the bucket to fetch us water from the well, but there they drink from the fountain head, and put their lips down to the living water. Here the angels bring us blessings, but we shall want no messengers from heaven then. They shall need no Gabriels there to bring their love-notes from God, for there they shall see him face to face. Oh! what a blessed time shall that be when we shall have mounted above every second cause and shall rest upon the bare arm of God! What a glorious hour when God, and not his creatures, the Lord, and not his works, shall be our daily joy! Our souls shall then have attained the perfection of bliss.”
I read that and think: “Where’s the satisfaction we have now, compared to the glory of eternity?” But the in my Bible, Isaiah 55 is titled, “An Invitation to Abundant Life.” It is an invitation to those who thirst to come to the waters, free of charge. We are challenged with, “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy?”
Y’shuaJesus compared Himself to the door to the sheep pen. We are invited to enter His pen, where He will guard us, watch over us, lead us out to pasture, and back into the pen for protection. At night, the shepherd literally lay upon the ground before the opening to the sheep. In this way, the shepherd defended the sheep as they slept. No one or no animal got through the opening. Y’shuaJesus, the door for us sheep. In this same passage, recorded in John 10:7-10, Y’shuaJesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Here’s my thoughts on this. The abundant life satisfies in the hope of tomorrow, the eternal tomorrow. The abundant life satisfies in the hope of today, for we are in the care of The Shepherd, and He watches over us. The abundant life satisfies in the putting away, the covering over, of the past in which we lived according to our own desires, our flesh. Our sins, confessed, are remembered no more.
We come to understand the ways and schemes of our enemy to take away our satisfaction, to take our satisfying and abundant life and turn it into a chaotic mix of anxiety and seeking things that do nothing for our true abundant and eternal life. This enemy is the enemy of G-d, exploiting our weaknesses, those of our bodies, our minds, our emotions.
It is G-d’s enemy who taunts us. G-d’s enemy trying to hurt us, G-d’s children. Might I be bold enough to say to our Lord that His enemy is tormenting me, and I’d like Him to deal with it? If I’m not, then am I trying to deal with the enemy myself? Am I really that strong? When the enemy hammers me, he’s trying to hammer G-d.
Once, many years ago, on New Year’s eve, I stood on a beach on the western coast of America. I cried out to our G-d, saying, “I can’t do this.” So G-d allowed me to not continue in the direction for which I was afraid. When I reflect upon that time of my life, I now realize I failed to accept a great blessing because I couldn’t see the bright future, only the dark. My trial was nothing like Y’shuaJesus’s and yet He prayed: if it were possible take this away, but G-d’s will be done.
May we delight ourselves in the LORD. May we submit to Him who called us, who wore filthy rags, and clothed us in His righteousness. May we catch the true vision of the future, the eternal future. May we remember the difference between caverns and tunnels. A cavern leads us down into the earth, while a tunnel leads us through a mountain. G-d leads us into tunnels that He be glorified in us; G-d does not lead us into caverns, caves, in which there is no exit. It is only the enemy of G-d that wants us to believe we are headed into a cavern. Thank You, Y’shuaJesus, that You said, “Your Will Be Done.”
Lord Bless, Keep, Shine. . .
JonahzSong 