By David Freeman
Pastor
Calvary Baptist Church
Everyone wants more: money, stuff, or power. The billionaire wants more money. The politicians want a higher office, and even a farmer wants more crops.
While this is true of the world, very few people in church seem to want more of what God has to offer. Job 42:12 says, “So the Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning.”
Are you interested in the “more” that God can give you? Job wanted more. What do we want? If we turn to God and truly seek more from Him, that pathway will be one of holiness, honesty and humility.
The pathway of Holiness: Job 1:1: “There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.” Job was concerned about his walk. Job 1:8: “And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”
God was pleased with Job. Job 1:5: “And it was so, when the days of their feasting were gone about, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all: for Job said, ‘It may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Thus did Job continually.'”
Job was concerned about his family. He made sacrifices to the Lord because his sons may have sinned; his utmost concern was to be in good standing with God. He didn’t want his family or himself to have broken fellowship with God.
The pathway of Honesty: Psalms 51:17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” We all need to be honest about our sins; we are not perfect. Romans 3:23 tells us, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” If honest with ourselves, we will find that each of us has fallen short of what the Lord wants from us.
The pathway of Humility: Job humbled himself before the plan of God. Job became the person of God. Job yielded his way. Job got under God, just as Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Daniel, Noah and David did. They are heroes of faith. They were humbled before the Lord and realized when they needed to repent and draw nigh unto Him. None of them was perfect, but they sought the will of the Lord and worked to follow him in faith.
When we seek more from the Lord, it does come with a price, but it also comes with great privilege. The price of more is not cheap. It requires less stuff and less self. Galations 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
We must crucify our flesh and not fulfill its desires, but instead fulfill the desires of our Lord. It requires us to be humble and humiliated. The privilege associated with more from God is that we receive more of God’s power. In Job 40:8-10, God answered Job’s plea. Job was intimate with God, and God responded to Job’s request. We need to be close enough to God that we can feel His breath.
When we seek more from the Lord, He provides for our needs. Philippians 4:19: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” God will move heaven and earth to meet your needs. The more we have of God and less we have of ourselves, the better off we will be. God blessed everything Job had in his life, and He will do that for us as well.
Do you want more of what God has to offer? We have to walk the pathway He has set before us, and we must be willing to pay the price. If we can do those things, we can have more from God, and our lives can work to accomplish His will.
