I saw this fall message and loved it. I am not creative enough to come up with that! A few years ago I heard someone talking about all of the building of storage buildings in our town. I think it says a lot about society! We accumulate stuff at an incredible rate. Obviously, possessions mean a lot to us and we cannot let go of them. So I decided to look at the numbers. There are now 48,500 storage facilities in the United States and around 1.7 billion square feet of extra storage that is being rented because our houses cannot hold all that we have! Makes you want to clean out, huh?
There are 2350 verses in the Bible about money and possessions! Think God knew we tend to trust worldly things more than Him? We are like the Israelites who were hungry and thought they were going to starve to death. Exodus 16: 4, "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.'" So the first day He supplied the manna and everyone was trying to gather more. They were hoarding for the next day - just in case. I'm going to be honest that sounds like me. I want to be prepared. (But I am not alone in this because there was a reason we could not find toilet paper recently! Hoarding!) And what does "just in case" mean? It means just in case God does not keep His promise. Knowing what we need to learn, God let the manna rot that night so they would still have to depend on him each day. Deuteronomy 31: 6, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you." He wants us to depend on Him. He is our Provider.
A mission trip to another country and being on a prayer team for the homeless taught me some valuable lessons. To sum it up, "the less you want, the richer you are!" Many of these people are so happy. They do not have the clutter in their life we have and they truly depend on God. When everything is stripped away, we only need God. People will let us down and things will rust or fade away. Matthew 6: 19, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.." When everyone else and everything is gone, God is still there. And God is saying, "I will never leave you nor forsake you.” All we have to do is trust. God will be with us through prosperous times and lean times.
Hebrews 13: 5, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'” God keeps His promises. We are the apple of His eye and He keeps watch over us. Psalm 17: 8, "Keep me as the apple of Your eye; Hide me under the shadow of Your wings..." And if you are saying, "Jill, He was talking to Moses, not us", read Joshua 1: 5, "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you." Just like He did with Moses, He will be with us all the days of our lives! That is His promise! He will never, ever, ever abandon us. He is the One who holds our life, our future and He will provide for us. "So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid...'" Fall for Jesus, He never leaves!