God’s Hope for Your Heart from Luke 12
JESUS WANTS YOU TO RECEIVE
“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Luke 12:32-34)
Earn your keep.
This is the message of the world, that to be secure, to be successful, we must earn our keep. Work hard to build up our value so that we will be valued by others. Practice long to increase our skills so we will be wanted. Be diligent in striving to accumulate possessions so that when our strength fails we’ll be provided for.
But that is not the way of the Kingdom.
In the Kingdom, we don’t work to earn our keep; we simply receive it. We don’t strive to build up our value so that we’re valued by the Father; He loves us already. We don’t make possessions our priority because they bring us security; we let them go when God calls us to, because in the Kingdom, He is our security.
What about diligence, then? What about the virtues of hard work and dedication, for Scripture surely encourages those things, doesn’t it?
In the Kingdom, yes we’re called to work with diligence, but not as self-sufficient strivers. We work as Spirit-filled stewards, not to acquire possessions, but to accomplish our potential as givers. And, when we are living as givers, our hands are open to receive the blessings of the Kingdom that God wants to give to us.
May you work well, not to earn, but to receive the blessings that your Father wants to give, and may your hands stay open to let the cycle of giving and receiving continue. As you do, may you be encouraged by this truth: Jesus wants you to receive.
-Pastor Phillip
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