NACR Daily Meditation

Wednesday 30th of November 2011

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in
the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1

    Most of us have spent a lot of money and a lot of effort on things that do not satisfy. When our efforts do not result in serenity, we become more and more confused and more and more frantic. Into the middle of this chaos and desperation comes an invitation. God invites us to receive ‘food’ which is designed to delight our souls.

    God’s invitation is to people who are thirsty or hungry. It is to people who are working hard but finding little satisfaction. The invitation extends to those who have no money or assets of any kind. God is not sparing or stingy. God is an extravagant giver of good things. God wants us to delight in the richest of fare.

    The nourishment at God’s feast does more than please our taste-buds. This meal is more than mere esthetic pleasure. The nourishment from God’s table feeds our souls with delight. It is nourishment that sinks down to the deepest places of our being. God seeds delight in the foundations of our soul. And from these seeds come serenity, peace and the courage to continue.

God, I’m thirsty.
I have spent my money and energy
on things that have not satisfied.
God, my soul is hungry.
I need food for my soul.

Help me to come to you, Lord.
You know my hesitation.
You know how suspicious I am
of such an extravagant invitation.
Help me to come as an eager child
to receive good things from you.
Feed my soul, Lord,
until it is full of delight.
Amen.

Copyright 2011 Dale and Juanita Ryan

A Bottle in the Ocean

A.W. Tozer

...To know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled
with all the fullness of God. --Ephesians 3:19


Pentecost means that the Deity came to mankind to give Himself to man, that man
might breathe Him in as he breathes in the air, that He might fill men. Dr. A.
B. Simpson used an illustration which was about as good as any I ever heard. He
said, "Being filled with the fullness of God is like a bottle in the ocean.
You take the cork out of the bottle and sink it in the ocean, and you have the
bottle completely full of ocean. The bottle is in the ocean, and the ocean is
in the bottle. The ocean contains the bottle, but the bottle contains only a
little bit of the ocean. So it is with the Christian."

We are filled unto the fullness of God, but, of course, we cannot contain all
of God because God contains us; but we can have all of God that we can contain.
If we only knew it, we could enlarge our vessel. The vessel gets bigger as we
go on with God. The Counselor, 68.

Offer this Prayer:

"Enlarge my vessel, Lord, and fill me with more and more of the fullness
of God." Amen

Often I find that the problem I have is that I neglect to "take the cork out of the bottle" and end up getting tossed about on the waves in the midst of the storm of life. When you float on the surface you are alone and helpless, you have nothing to hold onto, no stability. When you "take the cork out" and allow yourself to be filled with the "ocean" that is God, you not only sink into the ocean, you settle to the deepest point where you rest peacefully on the ocean floor, immersed in and filled with God's love.

Rmember every day to make this prayer your's and "take the cork out of the bottle". Marty