"Saul said, “If we go, what do we have to give him?
There’s no more bread in our sacks.
We’ve nothing to bring as a gift to the holy man. Do we have anything else?”
The servant spoke up,
“Look, I just happen to have this silver coin!
I’ll give it to the holy man and he’ll tell us how to proceed!” (9:7-9)
What did I have to give Him. My ABBA.
Looking into my heart, I could see, I too had nothing to bring as a gift for Him.
Even after eating my fill of the bread of the world, my life was still an empty sack.
Thinking because I "just happened to have a silver coin" in doing a good deed here and there, enabling me to squeeze by into Heaven. Everything I was basing my life on had worldly value, but in God it was nothing.
No matter how much silver I may have had, I was unable to make my way into Him. Not by works, bartering, boasting, nor is there any sneaking "into" Him.
What gift can we give to Him?
How humbled I am to think The Creator of all - our ABBA, our Daddy -
He wants only one thing from us - it is "self".
Even more humbling is the thought of our starved "self" coming before Him, wrapped in the ugly, filthy, stench scented rags of sin.
How our hearts are filled when seeing the joy and delight He takes in accepting the present of our "self".
How He holds our "self", a dirty, ugly wrapped gift, as His most precious treasure.
He never turns away, trying to draw in a fresh breath of air, as the stench rises up to His nose.
He gently, firmly, carefully, unwraps our "self" and then..........
He smiles.
He dips us into our Savior's blood, His precious Son, to cleanse us. Making each of us pure and holy. He covers us in the perfume of His Grace and Mercy.
He cloths us in the beautiful silks of The Holy Spirit.
He feeds us with the meat of His Word - His Truth.
Our "self" is His most precious treasure.
When I think about how long it took me to realize and act upon this, my eyes tear of the wasted time spent away from Him. All those years I walked in the world, focused on "self", trying to fill up in all ways possible,
and still I was empty.
The world is all about the taking for "self".
And then there is God's way.
A way which only makes sense if you are "in" Him.
His way is about giving.
Giving up "self" - to Him.
Giving up "self" - to be a vessel for Him.
Giving up "self" - to give blessings to those you encounter.
Even when it brings pain, suffering.
His way is all about giving. The emptying out of "self".
When we give God the gift of our "self", He fills us to overflowing.
He fills the void.
No matter how much we give, we can not out give Him.
He continually replenishes us - like a living spring that never goes dry as it runs towards the ocean.
In a way only He can do, as we give to Him, He fills us and no longer are we an "empty sack".
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