Living in the Abundance of God

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INTRODUCTION

I love people and desire to help everyone find the best for their life. The Lord God desires to pour out the abundance of His love and mercy and power upon us, but far too often we fail to recognize His presence and guidance when it comes. The Lord is so near, and every one of the promises He has made in His Word for us are true, yet we do not recognize it. If we will only believe that all things are possible to those who believe what He has said and done and provides, it will change our lives.

The Bible states that Jesus is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Have you ever wondered who the other kings and lords are? Well, you may not feel like one, but you became one of them the moment you received Jesus Christ as your Savior. God's intention is that every believer would reign as a king in this life through Jesus Christ.

CREATED TO BE KINGS

Consider this bedrock truth that God created us to be kings and priests: "From Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen" (Revelation 1:5–6).

Why is it that we readily accept the truth that Jesus is the King of kings and Lord of lords, but we hesitate when it comes to the truth of who we are? God says that because He loved us and washed away our sins in His blood, we are to live in His abundance as kings and priests. That is marvelous Good News, yet this is what I hear so many believers say: "Let's just hold out to the end. We may barely make it through this life. We may get to heaven dressed in rags, but in the next life we will reign."

That is certainly not what the apostle Paul tells us in Romans 5:17: "For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ." Yes, death reigned in life through the sin of Adam, but we who have received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness are to reign in life through Jesus Christ!

God has given you this book so that you can learn to live in the abundance of God and reign victoriously as a king over your circumstances even…

TO REIGN IN LIFE IS TO LIVE IN GOD'S ABUNDANCE

Read Romans 5:17 again. "For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ."

God has given us three profound truths in this single verse. First, it is possible to receive the abundance of God and to reign in this life. If we are not reigning in some areas, we are missing out on God's best. And make no mistake about it, whatever comes against us to defeat us from reigning is not God's will.

Second, we are to reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. We cannot reign as kings in our own power. We must be one with Christ. Since we reign by One, we only need to be concerned about our relationship with Him. He makes it possible for each of us to reign.

Third, we reign in life because we have received the abundance of God's grace and the gift of Jesus' righteousness. If we do not understand grace and righteousness, we will live under condemnation all our lives. To reign as kings we must understand that we have received salvation through the abundant grace of God and not through our own works. "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast" (Ephesians 2:8–9). And in the eyes of our heavenly Father, we are as righteous as the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are the righteousness of God. Therefore, we will reign in this life as kings.

OUR SPIRITUAL HERITAGE IN CHRIST

This truth of living in the abundance of God is based on the fact that we have been made kings and lords of all by the great love of God. "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together" (Romans 8:16–17). We are heirs of God, joint heirs with Jesus.

There are three things that will keep us from knowing that we are lords of all—laziness, indifference, and a preoccupation with the world. If you continue as a child in your thinking, if you are uninformed in your spirit, if you are lazy and indifferent, if you are preoccupied with the things of this world, you will live as a slave to sin and self and not function as a king in this life.

Why do we have the Holy Spirit living within us? "Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God" (1 Corinthians 2:12). The Holy Spirit dwells within us that we may understand the things that God has freely given to us. He wants to teach us the truths of the Word of God so that Satan will not be able to rob us of the blessings and abundance God has for us in this life. The Holy Spirit desires that we might fully know what God has provided for us.

When you are born into the family of God through the Holy Spirit, you are like a newborn baby. You have no spiritual past. Your sins and failures are gone and not remembered. You are a new creature in Christ Jesus. There is no past with God. Forget yesterday, and the yesterday before that! Forget it! God has wiped it away!

First Corinthians 3:1–3 tells that there are three kinds of Christians: "And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?"

There are newborn Christians who need gentle care and to be fed with "milk," the basic truths of God's Word. A new Christian is often carnal, because he has not yet learned many truths from the Word of God. Carnal Christians walk as men and women who are not ruled by the Spirit of God, whereas spiritual Christians are.

Many believers are involved in questionable activities that keep them in a worldly or carnal state. If we only knew the power of looking at something with our eyes or hearing something with our ears, registering that with our brains, and sending it down to our spirits, we would be more careful to guard our eyes and our ears. Far too many believers remain trapped in a life of constant carnality, which in the Corinthians' situation manifested itself in envy, strife, and divisions, because they were still slaves of sin.

IT IS TIME TO MOVE INTO THE ABUNDANCE OF GOD

All kinds of blessings are available to those Christians who walk after the Spirit of God and not after the flesh.

A close friend shared with me a dream that the Lord had given her in the night. This dream came at a time when her family had great needs. They had not yet come to understand how to reign in life through Jesus Christ. God revealed to her the most lovely banquet table, exquisitely set and filled with beautiful food. She watched herself sit down at her place, surrounded by such abundance, then she reached around all that luscious food, pulled out a dry peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and proceeded to eat it. Then God gave her an understanding of that dream. He had provided far more for her family than they were taking. Now, she and her husband have learned how to reign as kings.

It is time to move into the abundance of God. Jesus came and completed His redemptive work on the cross and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. This is the age of the Holy Spirit. We are living in the day that God spoke of through the prophet Joel when He said, "And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days" (Joel 2:28–29).

The prophet Ezekiel saw the throne of God in the great house of God. Out from the throne of God flowed a river of life to touch the world. "Then he brought me back to the door of the temple; and there was water, flowing from under the threshold of the temple toward the east… And when the man went out to the east with the line in his hand, he measured one thousand cubits, and he brought me through the waters; the water came up to my ankles. Again he measured one thousand and brought me through the waters; the water came up to my knees. Again he measured one thousand and brought me through; the water came up to my waist. Again he measured one thousand, and it was a river that I could not cross; for the water was too deep, water in which one must swim, a river that could not be crossed…. Then he said to me: 'This water flows toward the eastern region, goes down into the valley, and enters the sea. When it reaches the sea, its waters are healed. And it shall be that every living thing that moves, wherever the rivers go, will live. There will be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters go there; for they will be healed, and everything will live wherever the river goes' " (Ezekiel 47:1–9).

This is the mighty river of God's Spirit that flows out to the world through His people. God never started a church denomination. God started a river of people flowing out from the house of God to a needy world. They were to flow out to the world to help and to heal humanity through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said, "The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed" (Luke 4:18).

Jesus told the disciples that when He had ascended to heaven they would know that He had made it back, because He would send the blessed Holy Spirit (John 16:7). One hundred and twenty people gather in the upper room in Jerusalem as Jesus commanded (Luke 24:49), where He said, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you" (Acts 1:8). And the Bible adds, "When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:1–4).

Pentecost was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel and the beginning of that river flowing out from the throne of God as prophesied by Ezekiel. Continue to read in the book of Acts and you'll see that the river of the Spirit of God began to flow out to this darkened world in tremendous power. In Acts 2, Peter's first sermon was so powerful that 3,000 people were brought to faith and baptized as a result. In Acts 3, we see the rivers of healing power flowing from the throne of God, through the believers to touch a crippled man and completely restore his health. In Acts 4, persecution arose against the church, but rivers of unity bound the Spirit-filled believers together as one. God's people in the book of Acts risked their lives in order to flow like a mighty river to a world in need.

COME INTO THE DEEP WATERS

This powerful river of God's Spirit will never be bound by denominational creeds and doctrines. Walls cannot contain it. God is going to let the river rise until we all flow together throughout the world. We will bear one Name. That is the Name that is above every other name. It is the Name of Jesus!

Look at the river of people flowing out from the throne of God. It is a river of the supernatural. It is a river of people who have received the abundance of God and are unashamed of all of God's power.

Have you ventured into the river?

Are you ankle deep?

Have you come in knee deep?

Have you waded up to the waist?

As long as you are ankle deep, knee deep, or only waist deep, you still have your feet on the bottom. You still are trying to determine your own destiny. You can get out of the water whenever you choose. You can stay close to the edge. You are running your own life. You are in the flow of God, but the flow is not in you!

Come on out into the deeper water! Take your feet off the bottom. Let the river of the Spirit take you wherever God wants you to go. It is safe. You can trust the move of the Holy Spirit. You can trust God.

God wants you to have a full measure of His abundance and the power of the Holy Spirit. He wants you to be a supernatural witness to this world. As long as you try to please others only, you cannot believe God. But when you just want to honor and please God alone, you can believe God for all things!

The Lord is asking, "Will you come into the deep waters of this river of spiritual life?"

Make your choice. Trust God completely with your life! Let the Spirit of God baptize you with power. Let the river of God take you into the fullness of His abundance.

Reflections from JOEL