Focus: All Things To Enjoy (Pt.1)

Text: 1Tim.6:17

"Who giveth us richly all things to enjoy."

Many Christians do not think or believe that this world holds so much good for them. They think that suffering or poverty is synonymous with serving God or being a Christian. Nothing could be further from the truth than that. Hear me: you are suffering for nothing if you are not suffering for the sake of Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ says concerning Paul, "For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake" (Act.9:16). Paul himself says, "If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together… If we suffer, we shall also reign with him…" (Rom.8:17; 2Tim.2:12). Beyond the cross is a crown. You are blessed, suffering for Christ's sake. All other suffering is not of God, but then He is well able and willing to deliver His own from their suffering.

Pain and penury are not part of God's original creation. God didn't make man to suffer or live in pain. God didn't make life to be joyless or hapless. Suffering or sorrow is not another word for virtue or holiness. No one goes to heaven for having suffered so much on earth. Pain is neither a passport to nor a password for heaven.

Paul confidently declares that God "gives us richly all things to enjoy." Everything God gives, He gives in abundance. Nothing God gives is ever in short supply. The psalmist says, "Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah" (Ps.68:19). It is a daily load of benefits. It is stupendously surplus - absolutely in excess. God is the God of infinite riches.

God richly gives us all things. He is the liberal and superabundant giver - the God of all sufficiency.

Every time He opens His hands, there are things in them for you. The psalmist says, "That thou givest them they gather: thou openest thine hand, they are filled with good" (Ps.104:28). He scatters His blessings on you, and all you do is gather them. His hands are full of good things, and He holds them out for you. He possesses plenty blessings, and He lavishes them on His beloved children. The psalmist inquires, "What shall I render unto the LORD for ALL his benefits toward me?" (Ps.116:12). He says again in another place, "The eyes of all wait upon thee; and thou givest them their meat in due season" (Ps.145:15). God is always there for you both in dry and due seasons.

Receive your blessings from the hands of God. He gives you richly all things to enjoy.

by Bishop Moses E. Peter