Material Blessings, Too
And, incidentally, if your life is the right kind that God desires, which is for your good, if you seek first the Kingdom of God, which is your objective in life — or should be — and His righteousness, the right ways of life, He says that all the material things shall be added.
God perhaps, may not add material things early in life. He may not add them right away. It may be some little time, but He will give you all the material goods and necessities that you really need, and even a great many of the luxuries, if your life pleases Him. Yes, you can have those things when you know how to possess them and how to use them.
What is an abundant life? What is abundance? Here is the definition: "possessing an overflowing fullness." It means great plenty — great plenty of life and real living. It means exuberance. It means abounding. That's the kind of life that Jesus Christ came to reveal that we could have.
Not very many people understand it. Not very many people understand what real Christianity is. Not very many professing Christians know what a real Christian life is. They're making themselves so unnecessarily unhappy.
The true Christian life, then, possesses an overflowing fullness of the things that are the fruits of the Spirit of God — an overflowing fullness of LOVE (it's God's love, it's a genuine, spiritual love), fullness of JOY, and of PEACE, and of faith, of meekness, of temperance. Does YOUR life possess those things? Have those things come into your life to fill you?
I know that you fall a great deal short of all of that. Everybody does. We all still fall short. But that's our goal! That is the life that we shall live in the Kingdom of God. That is the life that we should strive for, and with God's help, we can gradually grow more and more into it.
That is the challenging life we grow into, the life of God's Spirit within us — that is the HAPPY life, that is the JOYOUS life, and the ABUNDANT life.
Where Do Our Resources Come From?
The abundant life must be a life that has abundant RESOURCES. If you have these resources, they have to come from somewhere, because if you look within, you will find that THEY ARE NOT THERE! We have some resources within, but they fall far, far short from the kind of abundant living that Christ reveals and I'm telling you about. You don't have this kind of resources within and you can't obtain them from the "around."
Look around you. you can't obtain them from other people because they don't possess these things either.
GOD Above Is the Source
We can have abundant resources if we know where to go to obtain those resources. But material wealth does not give anyone those resources. It can only add to them.
You don't have them within. You can't get them from the around. But you can receive them — only from the above from God Almighty. God Almighty is the great Giver, not only of life, but of life more abundantly. God is the Giver of the great resources. He is the Almighty.
God Almighty has a great deal of power to give you, to impart into you. You can receive from Him abundant FAITH, the resource of POWER, faith to drive out fear and worry, faith to drive out discouragement before obstacles, to know that it's going to work out every problem; power where you are now weak, to give you love to cover up and to drive out the bitterness and the resentment when other people do you wrong.
The LOVE of God will cover all of that and drive it out. God will give the resource of WISDOM that you now lack. God has all knowledge and all wisdom. God says if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally. And if you really believe, it shall be given and Understanding too! And then zeal and energy — real living, driving energy that is needed to do the work that you must accomplish.
It Can Happen to You, Too
I am going to mention something personal. To conduct this work I lead a very busy, driving life, and expend a great deal of energy. A physician friend of mine once asked me: "Mr. Armstrong, I don't see how you do it. Where do you get this energy? How do you keep going so long and under so many hours of strain and stress, and still have that driving energy?"
I told him, "It's one of the resources that I get from above."
Do you know that I have not had to see a doctor or a physician because of ill health in many, many years. Of course, I find it necessary to observe the LAWS of health and practice moderation in all things. It requires self-discipline. And then God gives good health.
You, too, can have these resources that make you happy. These are the things that we all need. These are the resources that can come only from God. And these are the resources that will produce those fruits of love, and joy, and of peace, and of patience.
Most lives today are empty, absolutely empty! They are filled with boredom, with frustrations and fears.
It is as you read in Isaiah 55:1.
"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price."
Everyone is really thirsty for the good things of life, for the happiness, the pleasant things and, to some extent, even exciting and thrilling things in life that we could and should have. But most lives seem empty. The well is dry, and they're thirsty.
"Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And your labor for that which satisfieth not?"
The Holy Spirit Provides the Power
What do you drink in? Jesus said that if you drink of Him, "He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living Water" — not stagnant water, but living water, sparkling water. "BUT THIS SPAKE HE OF THE SPIRIT, which they that believe on him should receive" — the Holy Spirit of God.
The Holy Spirit of God is pictured as living water. It comes into you. You go to Christ to receive it. You don't bottle it up and put a cork on it. It flows out from you. The Holy Spirit flows out in love, peace and joy, radiating from you. There is no other way to find these resources. There is no other way to live a happy life.
The laws of God are a way of life. The Bible in its whole is a way of life. Jesus Christ said that we must live by every Word of God. If you live by every Word of God, you will live according to the way of life that God has laid down in this book, the Holy Bible. It is the way of life that is the abundant life. It's the way of the happy, the cheerful life that simply radiates. It radiates sunshine and happiness, and it's always happiness within. The well is not dry. It's filled!
Now here is what this kind of life will mean. It means that you will be RADIANT. It means that God's Spirit in you will radiate cheerfulness and smiles, friendliness toward others, love, sincerity, good health, vigor, calm courage, good-will, and interest in others, instead of being so self-conscious, with so much over-interest in your own self.
If the Spirit of God is in you, you will be plain and simple; you will put on no airs. There will be no posing, as most people do in the world. You will be natural, and not pretending. You will be honest and frank and unaffected, clean in mind and in body. You will be humble. There won't be self-confidence. There will be faith in God, instead.
You will be humble, but you will have THE FAITH and THE POWER OF GOD, whose power is unlimited. You will be strong through this faith of God.
There will be no weakness, but great strength. You will have wisdom, and you will have courage. You will have everything, every resource you need.
You will be ready always to say, "I don't know," if so it be. You will be ready, always, to admit error when it is so proved, to confess wrong and to change to what is right, wherever you are wrong. You will be ready to accept correction and reproof, and to act upon it, no matter how humiliating or painful. You will diligently study to learn the right way and to live it, and you will study the Bible to find it. You will face every obstacle that comes along — every difficulty, every problem and trouble — unafraid, in the full faith of God, looking to Him for wisdom and knowing that He will guide you and deliver you out of it.
The Attitude of a Christian
Here is the kind of attitude you will have. You will wish others to live their lives, too, up to their highest, their fullest, their best. You will be concerned for their welfare.
You'll try to help others every way you can, never to hurt or to injure. You will never meddle. You will never dictate, interfere, or give unwanted advice, or speak ill of, nor give gossip about others. Never will you go around griping, complaining, and murmuring that things make you and others unhappy.
You will always be willing to help others by giving them a chance, and mainly you can help others by helping them to help themselves, by encouragement, by setting a good example, by thus inspiring and uplifting others, giving advice ONLY WHEN IT'S WELCOMED, and when they want it and are willing to open their minds and to receive it.
You will hew to the line of the one supreme goal of life, which should be to inherit the Kingdom of God, to be really born of God into the very family of God. You will be relentlessly pursuing this goal with zeal, with enthusiasm, with drive and with energy fired by godly ambition, with hope, with faith, living by every Word of God. The Bible will be the authority that you OBEY, the authority that you look to for everything in your life.
You will be overcoming your own human nature and the world, resisting Satan, drawing nearer to God by constant daily Bible study and by prayer, and by occasional fasting and prayer.
That is the Christian life. It's the happy, the abundant life.
It's yours for the asking. It's yours for the willingness to confess your sins to God and to repent of breaking His laws. It's yours if you're willing to DO what He says.