TRUE PROSPERITY BORN OF OBEDIENCE
I am truly blessed by my friendship with Weldon. Beyond his amazing gifts for leading saints in worship, he possesses a unique sensitive for building people. I typically ask him to review my most heartfelt writings to gain perspective. Weldon, after reviewing “Compassion Born of Contact”, recommended that I needed to stress the tremendous and positive benefits of Isaiah 58. I have not asked Weldon what he saw in the total chapter, but his prompting created in me another reflective mood. I went back to see what I would discover after another reading and meditation on Isaiah 58. TRUE PROSPERITY BORN OF OBEDIENCE is the result of the return to Isaiah 58. Weldon, thank you for your continuing insight and friendship, this one is because of you, Blessings Brother.
As an advocate for community transformation, I am challenged to work for a whole renewal that touches the totality of the community. Our spiritual, economic, and social conditions all need the influence of the Holy Spirit. There is a type of poverty striking communities directly attributable to the absence of dependency on the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s guidance. The insidious nature of sin destroys the fullness of life, leaving ruins and rubble. Daily, I travel the back roads of our community; there, exposed to the desperate and disparate conditions of my neighbors. I often stop to view the chaos of life manifested by the extreme clutter screaming of wasted and hopeless lives. If in 20 years I have seen this once, I have experienced this one thousand times. Again today, I will travel these roads, struck afresh by the realities of poverty and desperation. I sometime ask, “Why I have not become anesthetized” to the realities of the daily dosing of visions of poverty. I have come to learn that poverty is not about the clutter strewn in yards, garbage pilled here and there, about abandoned “clunkers”. The visual message is much more than just the broken possessions. This type of poverty screams, “Man, I quit a long time ago!” It is in the hungry faces, the stooped backs, the shuffle, and the blank stares of children, weary mommies, and broken dads. I often travel to the end of the dirt roads, and confront God, demanding to know why! There is absolute silence. God’s silence drives me back to the Scriptures to gain a more complete understanding of real poverty and Godly prosperity.
After the “umpteen” reading of this chapter, I was struck by the certainty of prosperity born out of obedience. The certainty of prosperity is centered in “The LORD will guide you continually…” Consider the following verses:
11 The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
(Isa 58:11-12)
If we understood the posting Compassion is born of Contact, then we understand the Church is called to a level of obedience beyond religiosity. In as much as the message of Isaiah 58 is to people of God in Judea and Jerusalem, so it remains applicable to Christians today. Prosperity is first from God and not out of our own wisdom or devices. When the LORD guides continuously, therein are the consequences of obedience and that is the benefit of Godly prosperity. In verse 11 God assures satisfaction for our souls, strength for living and eternal refreshing. This verse is critical to community transformation. The power to transform community exists only when the body of Christ is eternally refreshed, strengthened, and satisfied through obedience. The classical biblical commentator, Matthew Henry, captures this best when he writes, “the labor is the wage.” The sacrifice of obedience is the reward. Through our obedience, God blesses the people called into the fellowship of Christianity. God does not call us to endless obedience as a slave master. Rather the call to obedience is the call to experience the benefits of God’s wisdom. Moreover, beyond the benefit to the church is the community benefit.
Regarding verse 12, Mathew Henry writes, “They and their families shall be public blessings. It is a good reward to those that are fruitful and useful to be rendered more so, and especially to have those who descend from them to be so too. This is here promised (v. 12): ‘Those that now are of thee, thy princes, and nobles, and great men, shall have such authority and influence as they never had;’ or, ‘Those that hereafter shall be of thee, thy posterity, shall be serviceable to their generation, as thou art to thine.’ It completes the satisfaction of a good man, as to this world, to think that those that come after him shall be doing good when he is gone.” Herein is true prosperity that our families and we will continue to be a public blessing, that Godly influence shall be serviceable from one generation to the next. What greater richness is there for any person than to know his/her children, natural or spiritual, will be doing good even after we are gone from this earth. Through obedience we experience God’s prosperity!
by Grace Alone!
Pastor Steve Perez
Hiouchi Community Fellowship
As an advocate for community transformation, I am challenged to work for a whole renewal that touches the totality of the community. Our spiritual, economic, and social conditions all need the influence of the Holy Spirit. There is a type of poverty striking communities directly attributable to the absence of dependency on the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s guidance. The insidious nature of sin destroys the fullness of life, leaving ruins and rubble. Daily, I travel the back roads of our community; there, exposed to the desperate and disparate conditions of my neighbors. I often stop to view the chaos of life manifested by the extreme clutter screaming of wasted and hopeless lives. If in 20 years I have seen this once, I have experienced this one thousand times. Again today, I will travel these roads, struck afresh by the realities of poverty and desperation. I sometime ask, “Why I have not become anesthetized” to the realities of the daily dosing of visions of poverty. I have come to learn that poverty is not about the clutter strewn in yards, garbage pilled here and there, about abandoned “clunkers”. The visual message is much more than just the broken possessions. This type of poverty screams, “Man, I quit a long time ago!” It is in the hungry faces, the stooped backs, the shuffle, and the blank stares of children, weary mommies, and broken dads. I often travel to the end of the dirt roads, and confront God, demanding to know why! There is absolute silence. God’s silence drives me back to the Scriptures to gain a more complete understanding of real poverty and Godly prosperity.
After the “umpteen” reading of this chapter, I was struck by the certainty of prosperity born out of obedience. The certainty of prosperity is centered in “The LORD will guide you continually…” Consider the following verses:
11 The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden, And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. 12 Those from among you Shall build the old waste places; You shall raise up the foundations of many generations; And you shall be called the Repairer of the Breach, The Restorer of Streets to Dwell In.
(Isa 58:11-12)
If we understood the posting Compassion is born of Contact, then we understand the Church is called to a level of obedience beyond religiosity. In as much as the message of Isaiah 58 is to people of God in Judea and Jerusalem, so it remains applicable to Christians today. Prosperity is first from God and not out of our own wisdom or devices. When the LORD guides continuously, therein are the consequences of obedience and that is the benefit of Godly prosperity. In verse 11 God assures satisfaction for our souls, strength for living and eternal refreshing. This verse is critical to community transformation. The power to transform community exists only when the body of Christ is eternally refreshed, strengthened, and satisfied through obedience. The classical biblical commentator, Matthew Henry, captures this best when he writes, “the labor is the wage.” The sacrifice of obedience is the reward. Through our obedience, God blesses the people called into the fellowship of Christianity. God does not call us to endless obedience as a slave master. Rather the call to obedience is the call to experience the benefits of God’s wisdom. Moreover, beyond the benefit to the church is the community benefit.
Regarding verse 12, Mathew Henry writes, “They and their families shall be public blessings. It is a good reward to those that are fruitful and useful to be rendered more so, and especially to have those who descend from them to be so too. This is here promised (v. 12): ‘Those that now are of thee, thy princes, and nobles, and great men, shall have such authority and influence as they never had;’ or, ‘Those that hereafter shall be of thee, thy posterity, shall be serviceable to their generation, as thou art to thine.’ It completes the satisfaction of a good man, as to this world, to think that those that come after him shall be doing good when he is gone.” Herein is true prosperity that our families and we will continue to be a public blessing, that Godly influence shall be serviceable from one generation to the next. What greater richness is there for any person than to know his/her children, natural or spiritual, will be doing good even after we are gone from this earth. Through obedience we experience God’s prosperity!
by Grace Alone!
Pastor Steve Perez
Hiouchi Community Fellowship
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