Possession Rights

Why are we creatures so in need of assurance that we can take from our Master’s hand what He is offering?

Part of the answer may lie in Proverbs 30:8, where the prayer recognizes the integral elements to partaking of what God would give:
“Keep deceptions and lies far from me…
Feed me with the food that is my portion…”
It would seem that the lies which are nearest are often what hinder our receiving the most dramatically, until the ‘food’ He has furnished is what we most question as our right to take.

As 1 Timothy 4 explains, deceptions undermine a healthy receiving of His gifts: “…paying attention to deceitful spirits… men… advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe in and know the truth” (v. 1-3). Becoming entangled in the lie that we “cannot” receive the portion He has imparted, we deny ourselves what is by “right” ours to eat and drink (1 Corinthians 9:4). We recoil in distrust of the One who ‘gives food to all flesh’ (Psalm 136:25) because, in a deceived state, we believe that our own worthiness is the determining factor in whether we are ‘fed.’ And, in time, we reach the point of relinquishing our legitimate claims; of surrendering the gifts and vocation He has carefully selected for us.

For Moses, the concession of his rightful position came when he looked at his own skills (see Exodus 4:1, 10). Somewhere along the way, his own abilities spoke more loudly than his calling. His concession, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will” (Ex. 4:13), exhibited his greater mindfulness of himself than of his Maker’s power through him.

Is it not when we are “downward looking,” when our eyes are focused on ourselves, that we most easily believe those deceptions that our hands were not fashioned to receive; that we are not capable of accepting, whether blessing or responsibility, what God would place upon us?

And yet, He is unceasing in leading us to take hold of what is ours, for ‘the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Romans 11:29). He comes to us, beckoning us to heed the truth, that we might - stepping out against the lies - seize that which He’d already made our own.

For the gifts we are given, tailored personally to us, are nothing short of divinely crafted, based not upon our needs even, but upon His desire to give. Indeed, anything we receive is from the God in whom ‘every good and perfect gift’ originates (James 1:17); whose intentions toward us are for our wholeness and wellbeing (Jeremiah 29:11); who works even evil to our good (Genesis 50:20). He pleads with us, presses in on us, until we come into agreement with the truth of 1 Timothy 4:4 – “For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with gratitude…”

It is when we align ourselves with holy will that we are separated from the lie that we are ‘unable’ to receive the food which is our ‘portion;’ and it is also then that we discover how, because He so passionately wants us able to receive, what we had hesitated to take remains ours to accept ~

For, however much we would hasten to see our own unworthiness, however much we would question why He would bestow upon us any good, forfeiture was never necessary. Indeed, what He has allotted us is ours to take. He would speak to us, as He did to Jeremiah (32:7-8), over our rightful ownership claims, until the lies are shattered by His reassurance: “‘…for you have the right of possession and the redemption is yours…’”