Resonating Words to My Soul

You can NEVER set apart for God something that you desire for yourself to achieve your own satisfaction. If you try to satisfy yourself with a blessing from God, it will CORRUPT you. You must sacrifice it, pouring it out to God— something that your common sense says is an absurd waste.........If you are always keeping blessings to yourself and never learning to pour out anything “to the Lord,” other people will never have their vision of God expanded through you.

My Utmost for His Highest September 3rd Devotional

I read those words and I was speechless. The words hit me harder than ever before. Sure I've heard, pour things out to God and thank Him for blessings. Devote them to Him and live it out in gratitude but coming to the realization that hoarding a blessing or a gift can corrupt me? and 'other people will never have their vision of God expanded through" me? That is pure truth and a true heart test. What blessings haven't I poured out to the Lord? What have I hoarded with all my strength and all the might I could muster?

The saying goes, if you love something, let it go.. do not hold it so hard because you may suck the life out of it. I think thats how the saying goes =).

The scripture for this devotional was 2 Samuel 23:16 which talks about the water of Bethlehem.

¹⁵ David longed for water and said, "Oh, that someone would get me a drink of water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem!" ¹⁶ So the three mighty men broke through the Philistine lines, drew water from the well near the gate of Bethlehem and carried it back to David. But he refused to drink it; instead, he poured it out before the LORD. ¹⁷ "Far be it from me, O LORD, to do this!" he said. "Is it not the blood of men who went at the risk of their lives?" And David would not drink it.

David desired it so much for his own satisfaction but the key part of this is that he poured it out before the Lord. I read a commentary on it and here is how it broke down the verses.

v. 15

Said — Being hot and thirsty, he expresses how acceptable a draught of that water would be to him; but was far from desiring, or expecting that any of his men should hazard their lives to procure it.

v. 16 Would not — Lest by gratifying himself upon such terms, he should seem either to set too high a price upon the satisfaction of his appetite, or too low a price upon the lives of his soldiers.

Poured it — As a kind of drink offering, and acknowledgment of God's goodness in preserving the lives of his captains in so dangerous an enterprize; and to shew, that he esteemed it as a sacred thing, which it was not fit for him to drink.

PS:: He acknowledges his condition saying truly he just desired it and put His men at a risk of losing their lives. The fact that God saved them proved that it was not fitting for him to drink it...WOW! am still digesting this devotional. It is challenging for sure....

Hope it makes you evaluate your desires and whether you are just trying to feed your appetite like David.