Bacon, Eggs and God

Steak

And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 

Many believers have the same problem as that of the prodigal son’s brother. After seeing how his father had blessed his younger brother, he said, thou never gavest me… to which the father replied…all that I have is thine. That son never enjoyed a feast of the fatted calf, because he never went to the barn to get one of the many his father had always provided.

The inheritance was properly divided. What remained was in reality the older son’s. He was heir to it all, and had a right, if he chose, to use it. He had, therefore, no right to complain. God supplies the manna, but we have to appropriate it. Those wandering about in the desert for some forty years could have prayed all day in their tents and still gotten up from their knees with an empty stomach and in need of God’s fullness. And so it is in the spiritual realm.

God has already blessed us with all spiritual blessings. We need only to reach out by faith and take them. Peace, joy, contentment, victory, rest, etc., are all ours…not for the asking, but for the taking. Prayer has to do with what you need; appropriation has to do with what you do have.

I once heard tell of a young man who was unemployed and with little opportunity of finding a job in his hometown. He left home and headed for the big city. A friend who had already departed their hometown had written to the young man and told him there was so much money to be had in the big city that it was falling off the trees. Upon arriving in the city the young man was walking along on the sidewalk and thinking about what his friend had told him about the money falling off the trees. As he passed beneath a tree he looked down and saw a fifty dollar bill lying on the ground. He thought for a moment and then walked on. He said to himself, “Hump…I’ll pick you up tomorrow…I ain’t gonna work on my first day in the city.” Humorous, but the practical application remains. The young did not choose to appropriate what was lying before him.

In the final analysis, God has given to us more than we deserve; if, by the sovereignty of his grace, he is pleased to endow others with more grace, or to give them greater talents, or to increase their abundance, we have no cause to complain. We should rejoice that he is pleased to give such mercies to any person, and we should praise him for the manifestation of his goodness, whether made to us or to others.

Be joyous of what has been given to you and also for what has been given to others.

For when you do, it is then that you can have your steak and eat it too.

All that I have is thine; such is our wealthy condition, in the purpose of God, that all his divine resources, cumulative in Jesus, await the appropriation of our faith.