True Prosperity
“Who is the man who fears the LORD?
He will instruct him in the way he should choose.
His soul will abide in prosperity,
And his descendants will inherit the land.
The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him,
and He will make them know His covenant.”
– Psalm 25:12-14
Father,
I do taste in some measure the prosperity of my own soul in Christ Jesus. For in Him, You have blessed me with every spiritual blessing there is in the heavenlies. He prepares a home for me in Heaven. He reserves my inheritance–imperishable, undefiled, and unfading–for me as You keep me by Your power until I see it and hold it. I rejoice with joy inexpressible in this hope given to me in Christ. And I am presently given the privilege of tasting and seeing that You are good. I taste these hors d’oeuvres now that whet my palate for Your kingdom coming. Charles Leiter’s illustration of regeneration and justification in the sermon I heard yesterday was such a beautiful picture of how You presently let my soul abide in prosperity. Justification is like a class that I take in which the professor declares to his students on the first day of class, “Do not worry about your grade in this class. I have already given everyone a 100% for the whole semester. Now you have the privilege to learn this subject with no fear of failing, nor with the futile motive of scoring the highest in the class.” And regeneration is as though the professor had the power to change each students’ heart prior to the beginning of the semester to genuinely love the subject of the class. And the subject is Your Son, who explains You, Father; Your Spirit is my Professor; and Your Word is my textbook; and my class is paid for in full by Your Son’s sufficient blood. “Now,” You tell me, “Enjoy learning.” It’s as though You say again, “From any tree in the garden you may eat freely. See, there is the fruit of sweet juice called the doctrine of adoption. And over there is the fruit of reconciliation with Your Creator. Taste, see, touch, explore. Enjoy the abundance of My overflowing goodness, and drink deeply from the river of My delights and the wells of My salvation.” Here, in Christ, I have freedom and longings to pursue the prosperity of my own soul. For I know the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, “that though He was rich, yet for [my] sake He became poor, so that [I] through His poverty might become rich.” (2Corinthians 7:9). Though within myself I am poor in spirit, wretched, blind, and miserable; yet the splendor of the gospel is that I receive beauty in exchange for my ashes, riches in Christ for my destitution in Adam.
So let me know more deeply, and pursue more fervently, the prosperity of my soul in the fear of You, Lord. If no other aspect of my fading life here is prosperous, and perhaps it is better for me this way, but let me seek the food that does not perish. Let the eyes of my heart be enlightened, so that I may know what is the hope of Your calling, what are the riches of the glory of Your inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of Your power toward us who believe. And, oh, to know Your secret–the deeper, more intimate knowledge of You–is what my heart wants more when I read that You will make me to know Your covenant when I pursue and fear You. Let me seek it with perseverance and delight at Your table of delectables, in Your classroom of many treasures to explore.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
Journal Prayer: True Prosperity (7/7/12)
