Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Be Careful Not To Leave Your Footprints

My Utmost For His Highest
 
I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. —Genesis 9:13
 
“It is the will of God that human beings should get into a right-standing relationship with Him, and His covenants are designed for this purpose. Why doesn’t God save me? He has accomplished and provided for my salvation, but I have not yet entered into a relationship with Him. Why doesn’t God do everything we ask? He has done it. The point is— will I step into that covenant relationship? All the great blessings of God are finished and complete, but they are not mine until I enter into a relationship with Him on the basis of His covenant. […] When I have really transacted business with God on the basis of His covenant, letting everything else go, there is no sense of personal achievement— no human ingredient in it at all. Instead, there is a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and my life is transformed and radiates peace and joy.”  CHAMBERS
 
A few years back, I was standing on a tract of land that would become an orphanage in Jacmel, Haiti.  I was given the responsibility of finding the land and then building the orphanage.  I brought several men with me for the search.  Men that I knew had a heart for God, possessed spiritual discernment, and knew how to take undeveloped land and transform it into something wonderful.  We visited several sites.  When we came to the place where we eventually built, they said, “this is right, this is the land”.  It wasn’t just the lay of the land, but it was their sensing God’s presence there.  I negotiated the price, consummated the purchase and began the transformation.  Part of the purchase process was to survey the land and mark the boundaries.  That required men to hack their way through head-high overgrowth to clear a path the surveyor could use to set the boundaries.  During that process a rainstorm let loose.  We took shelter under a sprawling breadfruit tree.  As we stood there, a rainbow formed.  Not in the sky but on the property.  It stretched from the ground on one side of the property to the other side.  I had never seen anything like it.  The Haitian workers were fearful.  They believed that  if you approached a rainbow, you would die. I told them about God’s promise.  That it did not represent death, but life.  I told them the presence of the rainbow represented God’s blessing on the land.  And since then the land has been a source of blessing for literally thousands of people. The people who are at the orphanage today don’t know my name.  And that is as it should be.  But, they do know that God is present and that is as it should be as well.
 
As you walk this earth, as you go from place to place, the evidence you leave behind should be God’s footprints not yours.  God has made a covenant with us .. It required a sacrifice to consummate it.  His name is Jesus.  The chief end of man is “to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Make that your life’s purpose and let your light shine. And be careful that you don’t leave your footprints as you go.   ELGIN

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