“I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.
As for you, O Lord, you will not restrain
your mercy from me;
your steadfast love and your faithfulness will
ever preserve me!” Psalm 40:10-11
“For the Lord God… bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23
Limitless love and goodness, generous wisdom for the asking, fresh daily mercies, infinite attributes that are unceasing. These are God’s gracious, bountiful flow toward us, His children. He gives us all we need to know and follow Him, restraining nothing good except to teach us hunger and wonder for more of Him. He intends that we receive, treasure, appropriate, and use His lavish gifts to bless His name, and others in that name. (Deuteronomy 29:29; Proverbs 25:2; Philippians 4:19; James 1:5)
When we live in a land of plenty, we often fail to see just how plenty it is. We can run two extremes: wasting what is ours in great measure, and not availing ourselves of all to which we have ready access. Once we adjust our focus and expectations on the Giver of all things good, we more readily respond as He intends. (James 1:17)
Do we habitually restrain ourselves from putting to use the resources God’s entrusted to us? Are we more concerned about saving for an unknown future than about asking how to exercise stewardship of His varied and generous graces? How are we putting into practice the gifts He has bestowed? (Romans 12:6-8)
And what restrains us from praising Him? Do we set time for worship and thanksgiving, offer our voice in song and prayer? Whom are we telling of His deliverance from sin habits and mental strongholds? His faithfulness to meet needs, allay fears, help in weakness, and answer prayers? His marvelous grace in our salvation? His steadfast, measureless, undeserved love that breaks through self-loathing and frees us to love others?
“Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
mount of God’s redeeming love.
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’ve come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
bought me with his precious blood.
Oh, to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee:
prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it;
seal it for thy courts above.” ~Robert Bobertson (1758)
Father, You have given to me so much that is good. May I honor You in the using of it, serving with it, and praising You for it all, so Your unrestrained glory shines.
As the rain and snow 