Living in the Abundance of God (3 page)

S
ometimes we tend to think that everything depends entirely upon us and what we can do. As a result, we become frustrated and disappointed with our lives. If the apostle Paul had considered his past as a persecutor of the church, he would have been discouraged. But he was able to say, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

The word
grace
appears approximately 40 times in the Old Testament and 150 times in the New Testament. Grace is God’s undeserved favor upon our lives, and as we see so graphically in the life of Paul, it is the foundation of the Christian life.

When Paul greeted the churches in his epistles, he often began by saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” Usually, he closed his letters by writing, “The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.” Paul knew how much the believers needed the grace of God to live out the Gospel in their daily lives—our spiritual lives start and finish by His grace.

God created Adam to reign in life, and He gave him dominion over all the earth. He gave Adam a free will, or the power of choice. Then God put something in the Garden to allow him to exercise the power of choice. The choice was whether to obey or disobey God. When Adam sinned, death reigned on this earth, as was stated so clearly in Romans 5:17.

God has given every man and woman the power of choice. We can choose to believe God’s Word, or we can choose to believe a lie of Satan.

Satan came in the form of a beautiful serpent to tempt Eve. Today, he comes to tempt people in many different areas. He may even come as an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

The moment Adam lost his authority and dominion, the great love of God began to act on behalf of all mankind. God never intended for man to go through life under the authority of Satan or any of his dark powers. God told Satan that He would break his lordship through the seed of the woman, and that He would use man to bruise his head. “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:14–15).

Jesus came to earth and defeated Satan on the cross of Calvary, and then He said to us:

In Genesis we read that as man began to multiply on the face of the earth, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and his thoughts were continually evil (Genesis 6:5). “So the L
ORD
said, ‘I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them’ ” (Genesis 6:7).

God knows what is in a man’s heart. He knows our thoughts (Psalm 139:2).

Throughout the Bible, we learn that God looks at His people through eyes of grace. He looks at our hearts (Proverbs 21:2). He knows our motives, and when no one else can see anything attractive about us, He begins to move on our behalf. “For the eyes of the L
ORD
run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him” (2 Chronicles 16:9).

Have you ever considered a farm pasture in the winter months? Its grass is usually brown and unattractive—very insignificant. In fact, you could pass that field day after day and not even notice it. But in the springtime, when the rains fall and the sun begins to shine on that field, the grass turns green and it becomes a lush pastureland.

That field is an example of the grace of God. You may feel that you are an insignificant person—someone the world has never noticed. But God sees and loves you. The Son of God begins to shine upon you, and you not only become attractive to God, but to those around you. You begin to reproduce and bear fruit.

Noah’s life was a demonstration of the grace of God. “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the L
ORD
. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:8–9). Noah may have been unnoticed by his generation, but he was noticed by God. He may have been considered insignificant to those around him, but he was significant to God. The eyes of the Lord rested upon Noah, and when he began to hear God speak to him, he obeyed His voice. God showered His grace on Noah and spared him and his family from the destructive Flood.

Abraham found favor in the eyes of the Lord. “So he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing by him; and when he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them, and bowed himself to the ground, and said, ‘My Lord, if I have now found favor in Your sight, do not pass on by Your servant’ ” (Genesis 18:2–3).

The eyes of the Lord rested on Abraham, and similar to Noah, Abraham began to hear God speak to him. “I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you” (Genesis 17:6–7).

We are the seed of Abraham. God’s covenant with Abraham is our covenant. When God looked at Abraham, He not only saw Abraham; He also saw you and me. “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29). God saw us reigning in life as kings, heirs with Christ.

The life of Joseph beautifully exemplifies the grace of God. Despite the fact that his envious brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt and that he was locked away in prison on false charges by Potiphar’s wife, “The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority, because the
L
ORD
was with him; and whatever he did, the L
ORD
made it prosper” (Genesis 39:23). God gave Joseph the grace and favor and wisdom to interpret prophetic dreams for Pharaoh, and Joseph ended up being placed in charge of the royal granaries and was made an official next in rank to Pharaoh himself. God placed Joseph in a position to provide food that saved Egypt as well as his own family from a famine that affected the whole world. That is amazing grace and living in the abundance of God!

Joseph, his brothers, and all that generation died in Egypt, but the Israelite families were fruitful and multiplied so greatly that the land was filled with them. Then a new king, who did not know Joseph, came to power in Egypt. He feared their numbers and put slave masters over all the Israelites. However, the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread. Eventually, the edict came—every newborn Jewish boy was to be thrown into the river, but every newborn girl could live.

Before his death, Joseph had spoken a promise to his brothers. “I am dying; but God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Genesis 50:24).

When God encourages His people to seek His face, He is urging them to live in such a way that His eyes can be turned in their direction. “The eyes of the L
ORD
are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry” (Psalm 34:15). This is what happened to the children of Israel when they were in bondage in Egypt. God heard their cries.

As a baby, Moses’ life was not only graciously spared by Pharaoh’s daughter, but she adopted him and provided him with the training of the most advanced nation in civilization at the time. Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians.

Years later, Moses visited his own people and observed them in bondage of slavery. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, and in anger, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When Pharaoh heard this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled to Midian. There he lived for forty years learning the ways of the wilderness, its resources, and its climate. God was preparing Moses to spend the next forty years in the wilderness with the Israelites.

It was here that Moses saw the burning bush and God began to speak with him. “And the L
ORD
said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey…’ ” (Exodus 3:7–8).

God gave specific instructions through Moses for each household of Israel to sacrifice one spotless lamb and to place the blood of that lamb on the doorpost of their house. The blood of the lamb was a sign for the death angel to pass over that house. This sacrifice is known as the Passover. “Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you; and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt” (Exodus 12:13).