HOW TO LACK NOTHING: WATCH YOUR LIFE

The promises of God are like an endless waterfall. They gush out from His throne soaking everything in sight perpetually and to the full. This is the grace of God to His people.

My son, Josiah, is ten years old. Like many young boys he is not a fan of taking showers, so when he has to it is always an interesting exchange. What is more interesting is not getting him to the shower but how he actually showered. He would turn on the water, get in the shower, and sing and talk but at no time did he actually get under the water! I discovered this one day when, after having taken a shower he smelled the same as he did before he got it.

This is how we need to understand this waterfall promise of lacking nothing. It is not enough to simply confess the Lord. We need to get under the water so our souls and lives can be soaked with His love, power and provision. Too often we are content to be the the shower (go to church, etc) but never moved to get under the water. If we would lack nothing we need to get under the waterfall. We do this, not only by watching our mouths (yesterday's devotion) but by Watching Our Lives. David gives the following command in Psalm 34:14a: "Turn away from evil and do good;...."

Those who would know what it means to lack nothing are those who will walk with kingdom clarity and purpose, seeking to honor the Lord in all aspects of our lives. David writes with emphasis saying the same thing in two ways with the second explaining the first. The call to turn away from evil is side A on the 45'. Side B is "do good." This is important because we often think that watching our lives means that we need to stop doing sinful things. This is true, but godliness is not simply abstaining from sin. It is doing act and living in ways that prove our loyalty and allegiance to the Lord with our lives.

Abstaining from sin is equivalent to getting into the shower. But it is only when we do good - live in ways that honor the Lord - that we actually get soaked by the grace and power of the Lord. This does not mean that your salvation depends on your life. Christ's life paid for that alone. It does mean, however, that if we are to experience the fulness of this salvation - to walk in the enjoyment of the promises of God - and to have life more abundantly, we have to watch our lives.

To watch something means, in this sense, the guard and protect it. It is not simply that we were created by God that should cause us to watch our lives. It is the fact that we have been recreated by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that should make us fiercely protective of our lives. Paul sums it up best when he wrote:

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from

God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

(1 Corinthians 6:19, 20).

The price for life was the life of Christ crucified that we might live. The life we are protecting is the life of the Spirit soaking our souls and watering our lives in the grace, power and fulness of the Lord.

You want to lack nothing? Watch Your Life