My cup overflows

Psalm 23:

The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever.

Luke 6:45–The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

1 Thessalonians 3:12–May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you.

2 Corinthians 9:8–And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.

God is so good!  Sometimes, unfortunately, I forget that, but God is always faithful to remind me.

I have to admit that there have been (many) times in the past few years that I have been filled with anger, envy, bitterness, resentment . . . bad things.  It is so easy, when I focus on myself and the things that I want others to do for me, to get into this, “Who’s going to serve me?” frame of mind.  I start thinking about how hard it is to be me, how easy other people have it, that I give everything that I have and nobody gives back, and other “pity party” thoughts.  The thing about that is, it takes my focus off of Christ, which never pays off.

Other times, I start getting really hard on myself.  I need to be a better mom, wife, housekeeper, person.  Here’s the rub, though: that isn’t humility, that’s pride.  We (and by we I mean me) sometimes think that being humble means thinking (or pretending that we think) poorly of ourselves.  I don’t think that’s the way God would have us think.  After all, He made us, so He would probably like us to enjoy His creation as much as we do any of His other creations.  Also, this takes my focus off of Christ, which, again, never pays off.

I cannot stress how far I am from that place right now.  When I fix my eyes on Jesus, the blessings are immeasurable.  When I get in that mindset that I described above, I think that I don’t have enough for myself, let alone more to give to others.  When I fix my eyes on Jesus, however, “my cup overflows.”  He not only gives me what I need, but fills me so that I can give to others out of the “overflow of my heart.”

Several times in the last few days I have had people say to me, “but you of all people have an excuse not to do these things.”  I don’t, though, because God gives me everything I need to do His Will.  For He gave me a Spirit of power and self-control so that I can do whatever He needs me to do, whether that is take care of my family and home, serve others in my church family and the Body of Christ, reach out to the lost in the community, or anything else He might want from me.  If I have the skills, gifts, energy, time, resources to do anything, I only have it because God gave it to me, so it isn’t mine to keep, anyway.  I need to offer it back to God to use as He sees fit.

The thing about being good stewards of the things that God gives us is this: if you give it back to Him to use, He blesses you with even more.  So, I have to remember that God will take care of my needs, so I shouldn’t hoard the things that He gives me.  Now if I can only learn to take hold of the Fruit of the Spirit (especially self-control), then I will be a better steward of those things.  But, I’m a work in progress.

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