Looking for Abundant Life?

Looking for Abundant Life?

Worship the Holy One. God's Spirit gives life.

Are you looking for abundant life? Make sure you’re looking at the right places. Check twice that you’re not running after false gods. Because you become what you embrace. If you go after false idols, you become false. If you worship the Holy God, you receive life upon life.

They despised his statutes, and his covenant that he made with their fathers, and the warnings which he gave them. They went after false idols, and became false, and they followed the nations that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had commanded them that they should not do like them.(2 Kings 17:15, RSV, emphasis added)

What’s so amazing about this text is that  the Hebrew word hebel for ‘false idols’ and ‘false’ means ‘breath’ or ‘vapor’ or ‘vanity’. (The same word is used also in Ecclesiastes that proclaims there’s no meaning without God.) This kind of breath does not give life. This kind of breath sucks the meaning out of life. This kind of breath is insubstantial and misleading. 

Make sure you’re not running after hebel. Because the breath of life is ruah (not hebel) in Hebrew.

Ruah is God’s Spirit that still creates, inspires, and makes order out of chaos like in Genesis. Ruah, the Spirit of the Lord, breaths life and more life into us. Ruah energizes, empowers and transforms us. Ruah is the true author of abundant life.

The Spirit of the Lord will come powerfully upon you, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person. (1 Samuel 10:6, NIV, where Samuel anoints Saul)

Make sure you’re seeking the right breath. Hebel leads into falsehood. Ruah leads into abundant life.

Ruah is readily available for all of us. Christ has already paved the way. Seek God with everything you’ve got. Call the Holy Spirit into your heart. And experience the abundant life!

 

Gracious God,
Forgive us for running after false idols,
for mistaking hebel for ruah.
We want you, nothing but you.
Come and breath real life in us.
Energize, empower, encourage!
May Your Spirit dwell in us!
In Jesus’ name,
Amen

Q4U: Have you experienced the difference between hebel and ruah?

Be blessed, my fellow pilgrim, as you let the Spirit of God run through you!

Giving thanks today for
#671 God’s Spirit gives life upon life
#672 God still creates
#673 God breaths life into us daily
#674 God’s breath gives us energy
#675 abundant life is possible in Jesus
#676 Jesus paved the way into real life with God
#677 we don’t have to be satisfied with false living
#678 God is the real thing
#679 God is actively involved in our lives
#680 God blesses us with divine vitality
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Image courtesy of Meliza Celeridad.  Linking up today with Linking up today with What’s on Your Heart Tuesdays Wordfilled Wednesday, All Things Heart & Home , God-Bumps and God-incidences , Work in Progress and

12 thoughts on “Looking for Abundant Life?

  1. I think we’ve all had experiences of chasing after idols that don’t give true life. I pray nearly daily for God to fill me up with His life giving spirit!

  2. Sometimes our idols are so sly we can’t even see them ourselves. I love the idea of being filed with the breath of God. Chasing after anything else just leaves me out of breath anyway! Stopping in from God-Bumps today.

  3. Yes, amen, and it’s so easy to get diverted from ruah to hebel and not realize it… until we’re out of breath! (Oops, I just read Alicia’s comment, and see she said about the same thing! Well, it’s true.)
    Sylv R @ sylvrpen.com

    1. Yes, being out of breath is very descriptive. That’s exactly how if feels like. Like a fish on dry land. We truly need God to breath. And that’s why every breath is a miracle. Thanks for chiming in, Sylvia! May God bless you abundantly and meet all of your needs!

      1. Well, I just have to “chime in” again, with a “God-incidence.” Just got back from spending a rare and delightful lakeside afternoon, where I opened Andrew Murray’s book, “Waiting on God,” which I’d grabbed with a couple others before leaving the house. And there, on the second page I read, “Even in the regenerate man there is no power of goodness in himself: he… can have nothing that he does not each moment receive; and waiting on God is just as indispensable, and must be just as continuous and unbroken, as the breathing that maintains his natural life.” Had to share this!

  4. So wise, Mari-Anna…. Thank you for your good, good words here. You honor Him well. Press on, dear sister! You shine!

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