The word I heard this past weekend was hard, heartbreaking, but it was exactly what I needed. Thank You, Lord, for Your perfect care for us. The conference this weekend in Leiden was on Being Saved in Life by Reigning in Life for the Body Life.
The last messages was on Joseph’s reigning in life – but the usual stuff wasn’t what stuck with me. What hit me like an arrow through the heart was the matter of the price the people were required to pay in order to receive food from Joseph.
There were four categories of things represented. The first was money, the second livestock, the third land, and the fourth themselves. Well, money of course represents our convenience, livestock – our lively-hood, that is our careers, our jobs, our way of making a living.
Then the land is those things that are not physically or materialistically quantifiable such as our face, our hopes and dreams, our longings, our future; those things that are so wildly and completely out of our control and are thus those very same things we so desperately want to control.
Finally, the last price was themselves: The full consecration of our entire being and anything and everything that belongs to us. The placing of everything upon the altar of burnt offering and watching it all go up as a beautiful, satisfying fragrance to God. It is actually our rejoicing in the ashes.
It is pouring out our most valued and esteemed parts of who we are because we recognize that HE is more precious than silver, more costly than gold, more beautiful than diamonds and that above all He is worthy. Only He is worthy.
And that’s not it, not completely, what made my resistance crumble down was the realization that at each step of the way there is something we receive from the Lord. Just like the people received from Joseph, when we give the Lord our money, our livestock, our land He supplies us.
We receive a supply, the thing is that this supply is limited, it corresponds directly to the amount we are willing to pay. Which, let us be honest, it’s not that much.
However, when we pay the ultimate price, when we are willing to lay everything else aside and place our all upon the altar, the supply does NOT correspond with the price! When the people handed themselves over to Joseph what was opened to them were all the storehouses, granaries, and riches of Egypt.
Through this speaking, the Lord said clearly to me, “All the unsearchable riches of Christ lie before you, What price are you willing to pay?”
Arise! the holy bargain strike-
The fragment for the whole-
All men and all events a like
Must serve the ransomed soul.
All things are yours when you are His,
And He and you are one;
A boundless life in Him there is,
And kingdom yet to come.
Lord, strengthen us to see Your preciousness and offer up on the altar not just our money, our face/pride, but even our whole being, so that we may enjoy You in full – all Your riches! [guess post: Maria]
