The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe
"Having Him"
"I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge" (Ecclesiastes 1:16).
"Whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them, I withheld not my heart from any joy" (Ecclesiastes 2:10).
God gave Solomon untold wealth and unparalleled wisdom. Thereby, the king ventured into the realm of earthly plenty and abundance with the capacity to wisely understand what he discovered. He returned to declare…
"I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity (emptiness) and vexation of spirit" (Ecclesiastes 1:14).
Solomon found in wealth and by wisdom that regarding the heart, no earthly thing begins to satisfy. God made us with the capacity to enjoy the blessings of life - "He giveth us richly all things to enjoy" - but to worship only Himself (I Timothy 6:17). Every human being faces the temptation to "worship and serve the creature more than the Creator" (Romans 1:25). We naturally trust in dust rather than the Divine. Only the supernatural intervention of grace and truth in the Lord Jesus Christ rescues us from the doomed grasping for a fulfillment apart from God that does not exist.
"I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12:19-21).
We will not perfectly walk out the determination in this lifetime. However, with all seriousness and devotion every believer must affirm within our hearts that no one and nothing other than the living God can serve as the life of our lives, the peace of our heart, the joy of our spirit, and the fulfillment of our being. We must build an altar in the heart whereupon we sacrifice any notion that vanity can satisfy. Certainly, we seek to enjoy the blessings of life a as tribute to their Giver. We adamantly refuse, however, to perceive anything other than our Lord as the sole source and supply of contentment. We could lose everything, but if He remained, His peace would endure, as would our experience thereof if we have established the conviction of faith that regarding the heart, my wife Frances's adage forever abides… "Having Him, we have all."
"He is thy life… Christ is our life."
(Deuteronomy 30:20; Colossians 3:4)
Weekly Memory Verse
"Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness, He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous."
(Psalm 112:4)
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