My Inheritance: The Lord

LORD, you alone are my inheritance, my cup of blessing. You guard all that is mine.
The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;
You hold my lot.
-Psalm 16:5 (NLT, ESV)


This verse says that my inheritance is the Lord, plus nothing.  What that means is that I may be rich or poor, have large amounts of stuff or little, and it does not matter.  What matters is that I have the Lord in my life and he has me.  This is personal and intimate.

This is what I now see here.  I would never want to discount the Lord himself being my inheritance, chosen for me.  The Lord has a destiny, a calling, and a design that is personally fitted for me (and for you too).

But, that destiny, calling, and design gift is not outside or beside the Lord.  It is in the Lord.  I can say, and I want to say, every day; "Lord, you are my portion in this life".  Knowing him is my greatest desire.  I want to see him.  I want to hear him.  I want to watch him do.  I want to let him live through me.

The Lord is my inheritance, means that I get to spend the rest of my life gaining Christ, knowing him experiential-ly, that is intimately.  I get to explore and learn faith.  This is the land I get to live in.  The land I get to live in is Christ land.  It is also the land of mercy and grace.  His land is also called love land.  The highway to and through his land is called cross roads.

I get to experience contentment.  The world does not know contentment.  I get to walk with the one who has wisdom and power to solve any problem.  I get to be with the one who gives me peace that passes all understanding.

Jesus came, so that we could have life, his life, living in us.  My inheritance is that I get to walk with God and let him love me.  I get to spend my life knowing him (getting to know him).

Knowing God is a privilege that we get to explore, like Lewis and Clark, or Columbus, or The Pioneers.  We also get to watch over what we have and pass it on to others, specifically our children.

Knowledge of God is discovered in our personal passion for God.  We also get to share it, which is a blessing to those who hear and see.  Each person much dig their own well and explore their own territory, in the Lord.  We are blessed and encouraged by others stories, but we have to live out our own personal histories with God.

We get to spend our inheritance, writing checks on the bank in heaven.  What I mean by that is that we get to pray for God's will to be done as it is in heaven.  We get to ask for the kingdom of heaven to come on earth and the financing for that comes from the Lord's bank.

We also get to live by faith as a dimension of the spending we get to do.  We get to exercise faith.   That faith is in a person.  Exercising faith is a dimension of our inheritance.  It is not enough to believe, but we must act on our belief.

The life, our lives, as Christians, has always been about knowing Christ and making him known.   It is more than just knowing about him and being in the crowd.  Getting to know him is not only knowing about him, but knowing him in your life, as in, "what God has done, or is doing, in your life".  What is God doing in your life?

Jesus said that he came that we might have life.  Christianity is not just looking forward to going to heaven some day.  Christianity is about living with and in Christ on earth, today.  Jesus came that we might live now, and forever, in him.  He did not come to just give us tickets to heaven.

Sometimes we are like children who want Santa for the gifts he gives or the toy maker for the toys he gives.  It is interesting that the father in the story of the two sons (Luke 15), does give the younger one his inheritance money early and let him spend it and leave home.

Like that young man, we can have the wrong attitude toward God and want the gifts, rather than the giver.  We can also live good lives and never enjoy our selves in it, like the older brother.  He was not experiencing an enjoyable relationship with his father.

The way it works is that we decide how close we want to be to God.  The Lord is our inheritance, but we have to explore it, share it, and spend it.  You've got the gift, what are you waiting for?

(I previously wrote some other thoughts about this verse (Psalm 16:5) and subject of inheritance, here, and here.)

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The artwork above is by Cathy Freeman.

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