Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Enlarge Your Expectation

I am Yahweh your God,
Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.
Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.
(Psalm 81:10 HCSB)
What is your expectation, your anticipation, your hope? Is it set on God? In this verse, God declares who He is, what He has done and what He will do.

I am Yahweh your God. This is who He is. Yahweh is the name by which He reveals Himself in covenant with His people. It is the name by which He promises to always take care of us and show us every kindness. It is the name of His favor toward us.

Who brought you up from the land of Egypt. This is what He has done. The great salvation event of the Old Testament was when He delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt. The phrase “brought you up” translates a Hebrew verb which refers to ascent. God not only brought them out, He brought them up into a higher way of life, the land of promise He gave to their fathers. He also graciously cut covenant with them whereby He they would be His people and He would be their God. As great as this salvation was, though, it was but a foreshadow of the ultimate act of deliverance and redemption. In the New Testament, Jesus, whose name in Hebrew is Yeshua (“Yahweh saves”) purchased salvation, not just for Israel but for all the world. He instituted a new covenant for us in His blood (Luke 22:20).

Open your mouth wide and I will fill it. This is what God will do. It is the promise of provision and satisfaction. “Bless the LORD,” David says, “who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s” (Psalm 103:1, 5). In the New Testament, Paul encourages us with the promise that “God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have abundance for every good work” (2 Corinthians 9:8). This is not just enough but more than enough.

What is your expectation? Is it big? Remember the widow in 2 Kings 4. She was deeply in debt and her creditors were about to makes bondservants of her sons. She went to the prophet of God, Elisha, for help. “What do you have in the house?” he asked. She said, “Just a jar of oil.” He directed her to go and borrow as many vessels as she could, shut herself up in her house and begin pouring out the little jar of oil into all the other vessels. So that is what she did. When she filled the last vessel, and there were no more, the oil stopped. It was a miracle of multiplication that was as large as her expectation. If she had expected only a little, and borrowed only a few jars, that would have been all she would have received. But her expectation was large and she received enough oil to completely pay all her debt. In fact, she had more than enough—she and her sons were able to live on what was leftover. God made His grace abound.

Paul tells us that God is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or thing, according to the power that works in us” (Ephesians 3:20). So enlarge your expectation, open your mouth wide, and God will fill it with good things.

How large is your expectation and in whom is your trust?

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