God’s Generosity 

Genesis 14 

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

This has to be encouraging for us, to know that 4,000 years ago God spoke to another man the way he spoke to Jim and Judy. You'll see it there in Genesis 12:1; "Now the Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.'"  That's the same thing that he said to them, and it's the only way to get us to have faith in him and in what Jesus has done.  Because our kindred are dear, and our friends here in the body are dear, but, really, however good they are, we always have a tendency to put our faith in them, and God knows that. The only way to release us into faith, [Smith] Wigglesworth says, is to exercise faith. And the only way he can get us to exercise faith is to put us in places where we can depend on him alone.

So he usually does this, loved ones, whether it's me coming from Ireland, or you going somewhere else; he usually knows that he has to send us forth away from our kindred, away from the people that we can depend on so that we have faith in him and what he has done in Jesus' resurrection. Then you see the compensations in verse two. And it's the same promise that will go with Jim and Judy, "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing." He will beget children in God and in Christ to them in Australia; he will keep his promise, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves."  So it's much the same situation as they're in, and God will be faithful to them as he was to Abraham.

You'll remember, he chose Abraham as the first man he decided to try to lead back to have faith in himself instead of the world. Because that's what we had all done; we had determined we'll have faith in the world and not in God and that's how we all got into those troubles.  You'll remember that it culminated in the tower of Babel where we were going to take over the whole universe and the only way God could save it was to scatter us and split us into 70 different nations and into all kinds of languages. Then God took this man Abraham, and started to try to lead him back into having faith in God himself -- in God alone.  That's why we're studying Abraham's life here in these Sunday evenings; so that we may see how to live by faith ourselves.

So I'd ask you to turn to Genesis 13, loved ones, where I thought God was teaching us something about the generosity of faith and you see it in verse 1, "So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb.  Now Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver and in gold” very rich -- because he'd just finished obeying God and trusting God every inch of the way -- that's why he was so rich. No!  He was just out of a scrape.  Look at the previous chapter, 12:18, "So Pharaoh called Abram, and said, 'What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, 'She is my sister,' so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and be gone.' And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they sent him on his way, with his wife and all that he had."  That was it -- and we have a tendency to think he was lucky to get out of that with his life. I mean, God had every right to crunch him -- he lied! He had refused to trust God. God had every right to strip him bare -- that's what I would have done. And here it is; he's rich in cattle and silver and in gold. 

I think that's why we live such poverty-stricken lives, because there's only one in the universe thinks that way and that's Satan. Satan's the only one that thinks, "You crud -- you deserve to get what's coming to you." God doesn't think that way at all. God knows he has put us all into his son and changed us, so he treats us as being his dear son. He wouldn't for a moment turn around to Christ and crack him across the face, because it's his beloved son. It's his son whom he loves, who pleases him. He gives to him generously.

That's the way God is, loved ones. You'll see it in Psalm 103:10. It’s just so strong and plain, "He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor requite us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust."

It is incredible, but throughout this life, God will keep dealing with you that way. He'll keep being generous to you and he'll keep giving you things and enriching you, because as far as he's concerned, the only thing that needed to be done to change you, he has done in his son, Jesus. He knows it's done and he knows the moment you believe it and have faith in it, that moment it will be manifested in your life.  So he continues to treat you in the light of what he's done in Jesus, and he keeps giving you things. If you say, "Well, how come I think I've experienced scarcity in my life very often -- I think I've experienced in my life very often that God is kind of condemning me or taking it out of me?"  Really I hate to say it because you’ll laugh at it because it's that American slang but -- we're dum-dums -- we are -- because we believe that God is going to deal with us in that way of scarcity, and there is only one in the universe that deals with us that way -- that's Satan. It is unto us according to our faith -- that's why. We do something wrong, and we believe the lie of Satan that it should be taken out on us because we've done something wrong.

So for weeks, often months or years, we live under Satan’s thrawl because we believe, “We’re lucky we got out of that scrape with our lives. We should have ourselves beaten to death.” There is only one who wants to deal with us like that, and because we believe that, we link ourselves up with Satan and “behold it is unto us according to our faith.” That’s it.  But actually what we read about Abram is what is normal; God continues his steadfast love – continues -- whatever you do. And if you are able to believe that, it actually will be unto you according to your faith. He is generous, you must admit, generous beyond any understanding of ours, because who of us here do not know of many great religious leaders, and certainly we know of many ordinary people like ourselves, who have lived in all kinds of ways and have lead dreadful lives, and yet somehow God has continued to be generous to them.  The fact is that he continues to be generous and he continues to be generous to us if we can only believe him.

Now loved ones, it’s there again in Ephesians 2:4 and its put so bluntly that it’s impossible to miss it. They’re such dear verses that they are verses I’ve memorized. “But God who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses” and of course, that’s really before the foundation of the world, you realize that – “even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive” at that very moment, “together with Christ” when he raised Christ up before the foundation of the world, he made us alive too, “(by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the coming ages, he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”  That’s why he was able to do it with Abraham; he did that before Abraham made any move towards God. He did that before you made any repentance at all, or any confession; when we were dead in our trespasses, he raised us up with Jesus and started to treat us as his own son.  So it’s God’s own love that comes and keeps coming even in the midst of scrapes.

Now that’s no reason to get into the scrapes, and that’s what we should look at. If you look back at Genesis 13, it will bring it home to you, because many of us waste a lot of precious time in this world because we’ve only got this lifetime to do that. I mean, after this lifetime is over, if we haven’t believed God, then he can do nothing for us, but during this lifetime, he’s continually giving this to us.  Genesis 13:3, “And he journeyed on from Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first; and there Abram called on the name of the Lord.”  You may say, “Well, what’s remarkable about that”? Its that he was exactly at that spot I don’t know how long before, maybe years. Look back to Genesis 12:7, “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants, I will give this land.’ So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. Thence he removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.”

Been there! And that’s what happens too many of us. If you say what had happened in the meantime -- he did a detour. He did a detour. And he did a detour the way many of us do a detour; he first believed God when God said he would make him a great nation. He believed him. Then God, as he so often does, allowed a little natural disaster to occur to strengthen his faith. God said, “You believe me, and not the things you can see?  You trust in me and not the world, put your faith in my power, because of what I have done in my son Jesus, to give you all that is needed and to overcome your difficulties?  You believe me?  All right, here’s a little famine.” And that’s how it started. That’s the way it starts with us; we should expect a little famine.

We should see, loved ones, that in this fallen world, everything is not going to go smoothly. And indeed, God has worked that into his plan to make us like Jesus. He allows little things to come into our lives to check if we are really having faith in him. If you say to me, “Oh, you mean he just wants to see? No, he wants to strengthen our faith by its exercise, so he allows little things to come in like the recession, or like losing our job, to strengthen our faith. It’s vital at that moment to realize that, and to keep having faith in God.

Now, of course, Abram didn’t do that, you remember, if you look at Genesis 12:10, “Now there was a famine in the land.  So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.” It wasn’t even going to Egypt that was so bad, though you wonder if he would have had to do that if he had put his faith in God, but it wasn’t even that; it was that he started to tackle this problem on his own, and that’s what we do.  We have faith in God for awhile and then something occurs and Satan lies and says, “God doesn’t know about this, so you’ll have to get this back in line so you can get your life on track again.” And we say, “All right, we better take this thing into our own hands. We better do something about it.” And as soon as you do that, you begin to fear. That’s right, because you and I aren’t God. And actually the circumstances are too big for us so anything, a little wind, even a little breeze that comes into our lives, will blow us away we’re so weak. But for a moment, because we have been trusting God, we kind of get uppity and we say, “Good, we’re really moving now in faith in God and this thing is going to take us off track, good, we’ll deal with it ourselves.” As soon as we try to do that, fear comes in; we begin to be afraid that we can’t handle it.

That’s what happens in verse 11 “When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, ‘I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say” that’s the way it goes, isn’t it? When they see you, they will say, ‘We fear all kinds of things that haven’t happened, all kinds of things that may never happen, but we try to imagine the worst case situation.’  Loved ones, it’s not faith, and we separate ourselves from God.  What we need to do is that as we move towards a situation that looks threatening, we need to look it square in the face and say, “Father, I know that you dealt with this and Jesus, your son, destroyed it; you remade it and I have nothing to fear.  You will transform it as I walk into it with faith.” The moment you step back from that, and say, “No, this could happen or that could happen.” The moment you start saying, “If my bank account goes down a little further, if that bill comes in at the wrong time, if this happens in my job”, you are already in Satan’s control. You are already listening to him about all the lions, all the giants in the Promised Land instead of looking at the Father, saying, “Father, I know you have prepared me for this and I know you have prepared this for me. You have prepared my way and you have moved ahead of me and you have dealt with this situation. I continue to have quiet faith in you.

But old Abram did what we so often do. In verse 12 he said that, “when the Egyptians see you, they will say ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.”  Then, of course, you resort to your own devices which are always more sin; “I have to lie about this. How will I get around this? I’ve got an idea.” Verse 13, “Say you are my sister that it may go well with me” after all, you are kind of my half sister so it is kind of true so say you are my sister and they will make it well with me because I want me to be okay.”  And as soon as you go into fear you get preoccupied with yourself, “and that my life may be spared on your account.” Doesn’t matter, sister, what you suffer as long as my life is spared. So you get into it fast, don’t you -- once you let fear come in, bingo!  It grows big and everybody grows small and you’re the only one that counts and then it’s all you --manipulating every situation and everybody for your benefit. Don’t even touch fear. Fear is not faith.

You can see Abram had no need to fear. When you think of how good God was to him, even despite all of this, what need had he to fear, even when he was doing this? And, of course, you remember the way it went.  “When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw.” It happened exactly as he said; he believed Satan so Satan, a prince of this world, was able to bring it about. And that’s what we do -- it’s our fears that open our faith in Satan and open the way for Satan to bring this about -- do you see that? It’s not just the power of positive thinking. You know those people who say, “Oh, if you think you are inferior you’ll be inferior”, it’s not that. It’s actually that you think you are inferior, and you put your faith in Satan who has sent that thought into your mind, and you open your way up to Satan’s power. It’s actually spiritual powers that bring those things about; it’s not just “its Satan. That’s his trick, you know; he loves to say, “Oh, it’s just that you’re thinking wrong. Just change your thinking and it will be different.” He likes to cover up his tracks and make you think it’s just something human. It’s not; when you think those things and you move in fear, you begin to put your faith in one who is out to destroy you and that opens the way so he actually is able to manipulate the circumstances -- whereas the opposite is true -- do you see that? If you believe that Jesus worked all things according to the council of his will and that in Jesus’ death and resurrection, God transformed all the circumstances that you are in, even at this moment, and that you will be in next week; if you believe that, “it is unto you according to your faith.” But of course, this way it happened the way he believed.

Verse 14, “When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw the woman was very beautiful and when the princes of Pharoah saw her, they praised her to Pharoah and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house” so he took her as his wife. “And for her sake, he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-asses, menservants, maidservants and she-asses and camels.”   Any you think -- why? Why didn’t God just take all those from him? Well, that’s us and Satan. That’s us; that’s the way we would deal. But God does not deal with us according to our sins and it’s amazing that God’s steadfast love continued -- do you see that? He’s always working to bring us back into faith in himself, not working to punish us, but working to bring us back into faith in him and you can see it in verse 17,

“But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh.” I mean, we would say why didn’t he afflict Abram?

But he “afflicted Pharoah and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife” because he was determined to try to bring home to Abram “You are not walking in faith in me; there’s something wrong.”  “So Pharoah called Abram, and said, ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her, and be gone.’ And Pharoah gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on his way, with his wife and all that he had.”  That was the detour and Abraham had sense enough, after all of that, he had sense enough to see “God has not dealt with me according to my sins nor rewarded me according to my iniquities.  So Father, I am coming right back to where I missed you; I’m coming right back to that spot between Bethel and Ai and I’m going to build that altar to you.”  Verse 4, “Abram called on the name of the Lord” in other words he said “I’m going to call on you, Lord, and I’m back where you had me before.”

That’s the important thing: if you get into a detour or get into a scrape, make a quick adjustment; get back quickly to God.  Don’t say, “I need to be punished for this -- God should take it out on me for this.” Don’t say that. That’s Satan -- Satan is trying to get into you with that. God’s steadfast love is forever; as far as the east is from the west. He has already removed your transgressions from you and he has no interest or desire to punish you -- he did all that in Jesus. Now he wants you to believe that and to live as his child.

So immediately get back fast -- okay, you did blow it -- you were wrong; then get back to the place where you were with God and say, “Father, I’m sorry and I confess it now. Lord, I know your steadfast love is coming towards me and now I have faith in you.” Faith is what God wants you to do, not think of yourself as beaten or deserving to be punished. The best thing you can do to God is to have faith in him -- to get up and start walking in faith and that’s what Abraham did. And it’s probably because of that that God continued to deal with him so generously.

The account goes on in verse 5. God is so kindly, isn’t he? He thought, “Oh, so you have faith in me? All right, now let’s strengthen that a little.” So he gives him a gentle little thing, another kind of opportunity for self defense. “And Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents, so that the land could not support both of them dwelling together; for their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.”  It’s interesting that that’s just incidentally one of the reasons why God holds back some of the benefits of Christ’s atonement -- he could actually make us all millionaires. Sometimes he holds them back in a kindly way because the more you have sometimes spoils your unity. And when you have too much, sometimes then you can’t dwell together any longer, so we need to be trusting of what God is giving to us --all of the benefits -- because we have all things in him and we can have everything this minute. So we have to thank him for the things that he kindly holds back from us as well as the many things he gives us.

Verse 7 “and there was strife between the herdsman of Abram’s cattle and the herdsman of Lot’s cattle. At that time, the Canaanites and the Perizzites dwelt in the land.” Now do you remember who Abram was? You find that I think back in Chapter 12:5, “And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son.” Lot was Abram’s nephew. So it’s good to remember that if you turn back to chapter 13:8 --Abram was the older one -- he was actually Lot’s uncle, and so he was the senior. So there’s strife and the little nephew’s herdsman don’t get along with the uncle’s herdsman and it was pretty plain what should be done there according to pecking order and seniority. Yet it is interesting that Abram had learned some of his lesson; he knew that all things were his. He knew that the Father had given him all things.  

Loved ones, we need to see that. Do you realize that we are in Jesus by God’s mighty act and everything is ours for the receiving? That’s true in him.  It might be good for you to see it in 1 Corinthians 3:21. “So let no one boast of men.  For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours;”

God is saying “I’ve given you all things; you are in my son and I’ve given you all things. “And you are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.” And Abram knew that.

You remember how Jesus said he knew it? You remember when we looked up that amazing verse in John 8:56 Jesus says, ‘You’re father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad. The Jews then said to him, ‘You’re not yet fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” Abraham, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, had seen Jesus and knew what Jesus had done for him and knew that he had been destroyed in Jesus and raised up in Jesus and that he, therefore, had all things given to him that God was giving to his son. So he knew that all things were his so now look back to Genesis 13; he had absolute faith that all things were his anyway so when his nephew objected, he didn’t say, “Okay, I want this part of the land; you can have that stuff -- it isn’t very good.” It’s interesting; he didn’t take advantage of his position. Faith doesn’t.

Genesis 13:8, “Then Abram said to Lot, ‘Let there be no strife between you and me.” Such a different Abram from the one that’s telling his wife to lie “Let there be no strife between you and me, and between your herdsman and my herdsman; for we are kinsmen. Is not the whole land before you?” Imagine -- this was the Abram that took advantage of the half-sister relationship with his wife to swing the truth a little -- no more of that. He had plenty of justification. He could have said, “Look, I’m the uncle. I’m the senior guy here. You get rid of your people and move off and I will take this land” but not at all.  Verse 9, “Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left.” That’s it.

When you have faith in God, you don’t have to grab; you’re generous -- there’s a generosity of faith in your life. You’re not grabbing to make sure you get the best place or the best car or the best seat or the best girl or the best guy or the best life or the best food. You sit back because your faith isn’t in the world and in the things you can manipulate out of it. It’s in the Father and you know the Father, it’s in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him?”

When you live that way day by day, there comes a generosity into your life and a freedom from trying to grab for yourself. There’s a generosity that comes from faith when you realize, ‘”Wait a minute -- God didn’t spare his own son. Well, if he didn’t spare his own son, will he not give me all things together with him? Will he not work all things according to his will, whatever happens here in this situation?”

Loved ones, that’s it; when you move in faith in God, you move in freedom from self defense and freedom from fear.  When somebody has a choice to make, you say, “You take it -- whatever you leave, God, I know knows about it and he’s coming to transform it anyway.” Actually, Abram was getting all the bad land. That is, on the surface he was getting the bad land.  And you will see how faith in God protects you because you will see the shadows beginning to grow as the verses go on. Verse 10, “And Lot lifted up his eyes, and saw that the Jordan valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar.” And so all of it looked good to his eyes and he was grabbing it. Of course, you see the shadows beginning to gather, don’t you? This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. You suddenly begin to sense that what he saw looked good to his natural eyes, yet really had danger in it, and so it had.

“So Lot chose for himself all the Jordan valley, and Lot journeyed east; thus they separated from each other. Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, while Lot dwelt among the cities of the valley and moved his tent as far as Sodom. Now the men of Sodom were wicked, great sinners against the Lord.”  You feel the thunder clouds beginning to gather.

Loved ones, every time you move in faith in the Father, he will move you, despite the appearances, into a bright and  warm and  sunlit upland. And every time you move in fear; in grabbing things for yourself and trying to trust what you can get hold of, you will move into darkened places that will end up Sodom and Gomorrah’s for you.

Always move in faith. Believe God. Believe that he will look after you and take care of you. Because the beauty of it is, as you move that way, God then confirms himself to you. Every time you go out on a limb in faith in God, he will confirm things to you. He’ll give you grace beyond anything every time you go out.  That’s why I urge you to do things like going out into the neighborhood -- do something -- put yourself out on a limb in faith in God and he will confirm things in your heart. Many of us have never heard God speak because we have never done one thing in our lives in faith for him. We’ve always depended on ourselves, depended on our job, depended on other people.

Just go out once for God and he will speak to you and that is what happened in verse 14, The Lord again spoke to Abram  so God became real to him again because Abram had taken the right action of faith. “The Lord said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him, ‘Lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.” Of course, if you express the generosity of faith, God expresses all his generosity for you.  “For all the land which you see I will give to you and to your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as a dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted.  Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

And that’s what happens; you hear God speak to you if you will move forward in faith. And, loved ones, that’s true; so if you are sitting here tonight and you think, “God has not spoken to me like that” do you understand that Abram went out and looked up and an impression came to his heart from God. He sensed God saying; “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward.”  See, it was that way. It wasn’t just God coming up and saying, “I’m God. See my name on my forehead.”  It was the same way as those moments when you hear God speak within you and you sense that it is God. That’s what happened; he had a sure sense, an impression in his heart that God was saying, “All the land which you see, I will give to you and your descendants forever. I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land for I will give it to you.”

I don’t want to take Jim’s [Raymo] illustration from him. But he was up in the California hills running and he saw a lovely little house being built and here they [Jim and his wife] were planning to go abroad. His father in law had said to him, “Are you building a wee nest -- a little nest for Judy and a little home for the children?” And he hadn’t much of an answer for that.   Then he went out running into the hills and saw this couple -- they were standing back looking at their house in the hills, a lovely setting, just a young couple getting their nice home. And it came to him in a voice, well, he didn’t say it was a voice –rather it was an impression that he could never question from that moment; “You look after my house and I will look after your house. You provide a house for me and I will provide a house for you.”  Now that’s what this was [for Abram]; an impression of God that you cannot question it’s so real, and that will come to each of us, loved ones. God will speak in our lives if we will act practically in faith, if we will live, practically, by faith in God.  “So Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are at Hebron; and there he built an altar to the Lord.”  He got back to that place with God, where he had been.

So are you in a detour or are you on track? If you are in a detour, come on back right away, immediately. If you are lying under the feeling that you don’t deserve anything from God, then see that God does not deal with you according to your sins nor reward you according to your iniquities. In our businesses, because we are facing some things there, it came home to me; if God doesn’t deal with you according to your sins, and he doesn’t reward you according to your iniquities, then he certainly doesn’t deal with you according to your mistakes, or reward you according to your errors. That’s plain. If he transcends our sins and our iniquities, he certainly transcends our mistakes and our errors.

So pull yourself out of that -- reject Satan’s lie. There’s only one person out to take it out on you and that is Satan, and if you believe him, it will be unto you according to your faith. As far as the Father is concerned, he’s the kind of God that makes Abram rich in silver and gold and cattle immediately after the dear guy has lied and has failed to have faith in God. And God will continue to do that with each one of us, generously, until the end, always endeavoring to draw us back by faith in him.

The only reason bad things happen in our lives is because we believe Satan’s lie that we deserve those things. That’s it, loved ones. So change tonight. Change tonight. Rise into faith tonight. Build an altar to God here, tonight. If it makes it easier for you to go into the prayer room after service and make that altar, do that. Make a definite act. Or if it’s easy just to sit and bow your head, or go to the back of the room do that. Make a definite act. Or if it’s easier to come up and kneel at the altar, do it. Make an altar and make things right with God and say, “Father, I’m sorry for not having faith in you. Now Lord, I come back to the place where I left you and I build an altar here and I put my faith in you, Lord, and I’m going to go forward into this week with full faith and no fear for your glory.”

Let us pray.

Dear Lord, we thank you for the sheer truth of it all and the reality of it all. And Father, we thank you, that you have already done everything in Jesus, to make things right with us and to make us right with you.  Father, we are simply to believe that and open our hearts to you and have faith that you are now giving us all that we need and that you are keeping your promise  that you will supply every need of ours, from your riches in Christ Jesus.

And Lord we can look forward to this week as a week that will be a charmed week, a week when we will live a charmed life; protected and provided for by the world that has been destroyed in Jesus and raised up new and that will work the way you meant it to work for those of us who have faith in you.  Lord, we thank you for that. We thank you, Lord. We give ourselves to you, to rest in faith and to trust you.

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and evermore.  Amen.