Our church, Victory Baliwag, celebrated its 10th Year Anniversary last December 19, 2020. We celebrated it with the theme RECLAIM.
It is from Obadiah 1:17, in the New Living Translation, “But Jerusalem will become a refuge for those who escape; it will be a holy place. And the people of Israel will come back to reclaim their inheritance."
Many of us have lost businesses, jobs, opportunities, plans, homes and worst of all, health and loved ones. We felt that it was just appropriate that we reclaim of all these things this year. We envisioned an empowered people reclaiming all of these.
However during our anniversary celebration, our pastor reminded us that the things that God has given to us can never be take away from us.
This made me ponder about this for a long time. How is it possible that we have lost so many things if the good things in our lives can never be taken away from us?
Reading through Genesis and I realized that even as early as in the Garden of Eden, we as humans have then tendency to EXCHANGE or GIVE AWAY what God has in store for us.
Take Adam and Eve for example, they have exchanged living in the very presence of God for a bite of a fruit when there could have been thousands of other fruit trees surrounding them.
Then there's Esau, who exchanged his birthright for a meal.
Another example is Samson. He was very gifted and talented, and God's presence and favor was with him. Yet he exchanged this for one wrong relationship after another.
We also see King David, the man after God's very heart. His desire was to build God a temple that would bring glory to Him. Sadly, on a spring day, when he was supposed to be out in the battle field, David exchanged this for an indiscretion with a married woman.
Then there's the infamous Judas Iscariot. For three years, he had front row seats to Jesus' miracles. He had learned from the greatest teacher. He had a relationship with Jesus Christ Himself. But he exchange all of this, sadly including his life, for 30 pieces of silver.
These are just some of the examples of people in the bible exchanging God's goodness and blessings for temporary pleasures of this world. Some, like King David and Esau, God has managed to turn things around and redeem their stories. Others, had a not so great endings. One thing is for certain, God has good thing in store for us and we are the ones who keep exchanging it for the temporary things of this world.
How about us? What are the things that we are reclaiming this 2021? What have we exchanged them for in the past?
As we reclaim them, let's be mindful of what things we have exchanged for them in the past so that we may not make the same mistakes again.
Let's be reminded that God's goodness are better than any of the things this world has to offer.
