July 22

“About Benjamin he said: “Let the beloved of the Lord rest secure in him, for he shields him all day long, and the one the Lord loves rests between his shoulders.” Duet. 33:12 (NIV)

Living in limiting conditions or on-going lack in our lives may cause us to believe that this is who we are—limited and less than—not being able perhaps to separate our surroundings from ourselves.  We may feel that we have become our circumstances and our circumstances have become us.  Quite the opposite can also be true, where we have more than enough is some ways, enveloped by abundance, which can be joy-filled and God given, but may also produce a pressure to perform and a desire to hang on to it all through our own strength and perfection.  To maintain things as they are, haunted by a lingering fear that if the provision falls down or disappears, we may fall down and disappear with it!

Yet in the midst of the lowest of lows we may sink to, or the highest heights we may ascend to, it is Jesus Who reaches in to rescue us from any wrong belief we have formed along life’s way. He imparts instead the truth of who we are meant to be, based on how God has made us from the beginning of time, and His original design.

He lovingly teaches us that we are not our environment, good or bad, and that any of the exterior trappings that confine us, do not define us, for we were created by God, made in His image and likeness, with tremendous hope and potential placed inside of us by our loving Father and our Creator God.  With equal worth and value ascribed to all, we can overcome in the midst of our circumstances by the grace of God, through the supernatural strength of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit, Who is our limitless help and unwavering hope!

You are the beloved of the Lord, never defined by what is around you, rather defined instead by the One Who is in you!  Yes dear heart, hold your head high, and find your place of rest, secure in Him, and in the beauty of who you are—overcomer, victorious one, beloved of the Lord, chosen and cherished child of God, with full access to the richness of the Kingdom of our Glorious King! 

Step out of the anxiety and the stress caused by the highs or the lows in life, and step instead into your God-given liberty, separate from it all, and into the beauty of Who He created you to be.  Rest beloved, between His sheltering shoulders, secure in His abiding truth.  Abide there forever and be free! 
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