CLAIM YOUR INHERITANCE IN CHRIST

“But to all who received [Jesus], who believed in His name, He gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.”  (John 1:12-13 NRSV)

“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ -- if, in fact, we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”  (Romans 8:14-17 NRSV)

The good news we share with one another is the gospel’s declaration that no matter where we are in life, we are the recipients of God’s limitless grace. We can have peace, joy, assurance, comfort, hope, tranquility, confidence, and companionship with God in Christ and beyond that, life eternal. With a life bank full of such gifts we are indeed rich. And yet, so often I permit myself to slip into poverty thinking and poverty living. I feel anxious, alone, fearful, faithless, without joy, and sometimes without hope. I feel this way because I have forgotten and lost grip on the inheritance that God gives me in Christ anew every morning.

Many of us live in spiritual poverty because we have forgotten who we are as God’s children and who God is as our loving Father. The fact that you are reading these words suggests that you are reaching out even now to claim your full inheritance as a child of God. May God grant grace and wisdom to do so more and more today and every day of your life. Claim your inheritance in Christ and live as God’s beloved child today. 

-- Adapted from Rueben P. Job in “A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God”

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SPIRITUAL POVERTY

“Jesus answered them and said, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.’”  (John 6:26-27)

There’s no end to the stuff that can be conceived. We go into debt to buy more and more of it. So why do we still feel empty? Your garage, your basement, and your storage unit may all be packed, and still you feel empty. It’s a little like eating a big meal. You feel full at first, but it’s not going to last. You’ll always need the next meal, the next purchase, the next jolt of brief fullness.

We’re trying to fill the cavity of the soul with things that won’t fit. Mother Teresa once said, “The spiritual poverty of the Western world is much greater than the physical poverty of our people in Calcutta. You in the West have millions of people who suffer such terrible loneliness and emptiness… These people are not hungry in the physical sense, but they are in another way. They know they need something more than money, yet they don’t know what it is. What they are missing really is a living relationship with God.” (from “Life in the Spirit: Reflections, Meditations, Prayers”) 

-- Kyle Idleman in “The End of Me: Where Real Life in the Upside-Down Ways of Jesus Begins”

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A DIFFERENT KIND OF INHERITANCE

“Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints,…”  (Ephesians 1:18)

Have you dreamed about inheriting treasures from a long lost relative?  To be "in the will" would change your life forever!  Consider the rags-to-riches story of Jack Wurm.  In 1949, Mr. Wurm was unemployed and bankrupt.  As he strolled along a San Francisco beach, he found a bottle with a scroll inside.  He discovered that this "message in a bottle" was the last will and testament of Daisy Singer Alexander, heiress to the Singer Sewing Company fortune.

The faded paper read: "To avoid confusion, I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle, and to my attorney, Barry Cohen; share and share alike."  The courts discovered that she had written the note and thrown the bottle into the Thames River in London.  It had drifted across the oceans to San Francisco and reached a penniless Jack Wurm.  Jack inherited over $6 million in cash and Singer stock.

Similarly, God has sent us a "message in a Bible."  Within this book you'll find the "last will and testament of our Lord" with a different kind of inheritance -- spiritual treasures.  How will you respond?  Will you walk past it?  Or, like Jack Wurm, will you step out in faith and take action?  Failure to take God's promises seriously leads to spiritual poverty.  Jack's inheritance can't begin to compare with the spiritual wealth God offers His heirs!

-- Lenya Heitzig and Penny Pierce Rose in Pathway to God's Treasure: Ephesians

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