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"Ridding of Stuff" - 10/06/17 - 2 Chronicles 35-36

One of my greatest delights are empty shelves and empty drawers.  I love how our ABBA has opened my eyes to an awareness regarding "stuff".  It came about some years ago while watching the show "Storage Wars". I enjoyed seeing what value they get for their discoveries, yet it constantly amazes me how so many persons just walk away from, forget, or just don't care about "stuff". At first I thought they were foolish, but then ABBA helped me see things from another perspective.

"Storage Wars" is an eye opener to see how others will one day dig into - and I mean that literally - without any care about the sentimental value of our stuff. It has caused me to reevaluate what I am keeping and why.

Every once in awhile I will watch an episode of "Hoarders" and relate it to going to the doctor. It becomes my motivation to look about this place ABBA has blessed us with and rid it of more "stuff". There are still some things I am hanging onto, but only because of the sentimental meaning behind them. Things I am working on getting rid of because bottom line - they really aren't something I enjoy, use, would have purchased on my own, or anything our kids want. I am trying to live with less. Not only because of the freedom for myself, but the freedom our kids will enjoy not having to wade through and rid of "stuff" when we are gone.

In The Scriptures, the people placed such pride and their worth in the Temple and within a short amount of time it was destroyed. Burned or carried away - totally dismantled. Today, I look about to see if I am allowing anything or anyone be what I place my worth, my pride into.

We are His Temple.  Upon accepting Christ, The Holy Spirit resides within us.

The "shell" of us will one day return to the dust it came from, but our "soul" will be joining our ABBA. We are to be a good steward of this "shell" (in which I fail miserably at times), and keep it in order. Keep it filled with only things that honor ABBA. Keep it clean. Keep it at the ready.

My daily "temple keeping" begins with His Living Word. I fill it within me, taking it into my heart and receiving nourishment from it throughout the day as I chew on it.

Continually He is helping me to not get my worth out of stuff accumulated. Helping me to not get my worth out of my work.

Helping me to not get my worth out of who I am, but "whose" I am. "Now God has us where He wants us,
with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus.

Saving is all His idea, and all His work.

It’s God’s gift from start to finish!

We don’t play the major role.

But don’t take any of this for granted.

It was only yesterday that you outsiders to God’s ways had no idea of any of this,
didn’t know the first thing about the way God works,
hadn’t the faintest idea of Christ.

You knew nothing of that rich history of God’s covenants and promises in Israel,
hadn’t a clue about what God was doing in the world at large.

Now because of Christ—dying that death, shedding that blood—you who were once out of it altogether are in on everything.

Then He started over.

Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, He created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.

Christ brought us together through His death on The Cross.

Through Him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.

That’s plain enough, isn’t it?
You’re no longer wandering exiles.
This Kingdom of Faith is now your Home Country.

You’re no longer strangers or outsiders.

God is building a Home.
He’s using us all—irrespective of how we got here—in what He is building.
He used the apostles and prophets for the foundation.

Now He’s using you,

fitting you in brick by brick, stone by stone,
with Christ Jesus as The Cornerstone that holds all the parts together.

We see it taking shape day after day—a Holy Temple built by God, all of us built into it, A Temple in which God is quite at home." (Ephesians 2:10-22)

Posted by deby at 8:45 AM