WHERE WE CAN FLOURISH

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In Christ, Mark

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Why do you boast of evil, you mighty hero? Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God? You who practice deceit, your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor. You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth. You love every harmful word, you deceitful tongue!

Surely God will bring you down to everlasting ruin: He will snatch you up and pluck you from your tent; He will uproot you from the land of the living. The righteous will see and fear; they will laugh at you, saying, “Here now is the man who did not make God his stronghold but trusted in his great wealth and grew strong by destroying others!”

But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever. For what You have done I will always praise You in the presence of Your faithful people. And I will hope in Your name, for Your name is good.

Psalm 52

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

I think most people in life have a hope that one day they will flourish in life. Everyone has dreams about what they would like their lives to be from their earliest years when they wonder what they would like to be when they grow up.

Those dreams involve many things: a college education that helps us get a decent job - a job that gives us all the money we need to enjoy life to the fullest, a nice home to live in and raise a family we envision having one day, a car we have always wanted to drive around in, or a vacation to some exotic place we have only seen in pictures.

We all wish to flourish. But are we looking to flourish in the wrong way?

Notice how everything I mentioned above is physical and worldly. We typically think of flourishing on the scale the world creates. And when we allow the world to set the parameters then we accept the possibility that we might fail to flourish. We might fail to see our dreams come true.

It happens doesn’t it? I can’t tell you how many people I minister to who are in despair and depressed over the fact that they aren’t further ahead in their lives. They see themselves as behind the power curve on the worldly scale and wonder if they will ever flourish. This anguish is amplified by people they see around them doing better. They begin to wonder if they’ll ever be like that, if they ever will flourish. Sometimes, they even question God about this – about why they aren’t flourishing like others. And often times, these feelings spiral down to the point where people blame God for their life situation; they blame Him for not blessing them like others have been blessed.

The truth if the matter is that on the worldly scale of flourishing, there are winners and losers, those who succeed and those who fail to measure up.

But does it have to be like that?

I’m here today to offer you good news from God’s word. It doesn’t. For everyone has an equal chance to flourish when you shift the scale from the world to the Lord.

Go back to the question above and consider it again. Are we looking to flourish in the wrong way?

The answer is often yes. This is because we seek to flourish through temporal material things when we should be focusing on eternal spiritual ones.

Consider the following words from David in the 52nd Psalm and the prophet Jeremiah:

“But I am like an olive tree flourishing in the house of God; trust in God’s unfailing love forever and ever. For what You have done I will always praise You in the presence of Your faithful people. And I will hope in Your name, for Your name is good.”

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8

In these two passages, we find the place where we will always flourish, now and forever. That place is with the Lord.

For whether in His house (read church) in worship or in living out the lives He blesses us with each and every day, when we place our full focus and trust in Him, we find ourselves like the flourishing tree, always watered so we can remain healthy and alive, our leaves ever green. We’re so healthy that we can withstand anything and everything life brings upon us. We can survive the dry spells in life and stand the heat when it burns down on us. Through any and all circumstances, we never fail to bear fruit.

All because God is with us and we find our eternal hope in His name. We discover that in the Lord, all our possible dreams come true as we receive an unfailing love and protection that never fails. Our daily relationship with God brings us a peace and joy that can be found nowhere else, a peace and joy that can never be taken away as we flourish in the lavished grace and mercy of the Father. We never find ourselves in despair because we are completely in a spirit of praise, giving thanks for the goodness of God in our lives as we realize and appreciate His abundant blessings.

Friends, do you feel you are flourishing today? And if so, on what scale are you measuring it by? Is it by your possessions that could be here today and gone tomorrow? Or is it by the only true place where one can flourish, the place awaiting anyone who comes and plants themselves to experience the richness of growing in the Lord, a place where living water ever feeds the roots producing green leaves and a fruit harvest?

There is a place where all can flourish. It is found in the Lord.

If you’re not already there, I pray you’ll come and set down your roots with me.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.

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