THE BOUNTIES OF GOD’S HOUSE

“You crown the year with YOUR BOUNTY, and your carts overflow with abundance!” – Psalm 65:11 (NIB)

GOD’ HOUSE abounds in beauty, but also in BOUNTIES. The Beauty describes who He is; the bounties, what He gives. Bountifulness speaks of abundance; and Zion is a place of abundance and plenty: “They will come and shout for joy on the heights of ZION; they will rejoice in the BOUNTY of the Lord – the grain, the new wine and the olive oil, the young of the flocks and herds. They will be like a well-watered garden, and they will sorrow no more” (Jer.31:12, NIV).

God’s Bounties are a key part of the theme of Psalm 65, which some scholars believe King David composed after one of his life-threating situations. Having experienced God’s salvation and deliverance, David acknowledged His bounty as extending to the end of the earth. The Psalm therefore has both the personal and corporate dimensions. It is an expression of personal and public thanksgiving for God’s deliverance and generosity. The psalm calls us to pause, reflect, and appreciate God’s generosity in our lives, which is what David did in verse 11, where he concluded: “You have crowned the year with Your BOUNTY, and Your paths drip fatness” (NASB).  The New International version translation says: “…your carts overflow with abundance” (NIB). This is a witness of a grateful man who took time to appreciate God’s bounties!

An intriguing story in Genesis 28 describes Jacob’s one-night encounter, far from his home, in which he saw in a dream the connecting ladder between Heaven and earth, and angels ascending and descending, expectedly not empty-handed! The story reveals a life-transforming truth: Heaven’s resources are a lot closer than we might think! Believers often view Heaven as some distant and remote realm with no impact on our lives until after death. Jacob’s dream illustrates the flux of activity taking place between Heaven and earth. After Jacob witnessed the startling interaction between Heaven and earth, the Lord promised to give him that land, assuring: “…in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen.28:14b). Whereas in the physical, this piece of ground was just a desolate section of desert, the encounter impacted Jacob so greatly that he declared the spot to be a special sanctuary of God’s presence – the very gate of Heaven!  

Following Jacob’s thinking, I believe that God’s House – the Church – is ordained to be the connecting place of heaven on earth, the reservoir of divine resources, and the channel of divine bounties to the nations of the earth! God’s Bounties are all-embracing, ranging from the physical to the spiritual; from the temporal to the eternal: “as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (1Pet.1:3-4a). Note the almost unlimited dimensions of divine bounties: “all things that pertain to life and godliness”! These echo Paul’s reasoning: “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Rom.8:32).

We as believers are objects of divine Favour, recipients of divine Bounties, and partakers of divine Life. God is the Greatest Giver! His boundless power accounts for the plenitude and variety of His bestowments upon His people. His matchless generosity finds expression in the divine endowments of the Church, which are altogether beyond human acquirement. There is nothing than man could do to earn such blessings. As you look at your life today, can you sing the words of Psalm 65:11, that God crowns the year with His Bounty? Earlier in Psalm 65:4, we read, “Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the GOOD THINGS of YOUR HOUSE, of your holy temple” (NIV). May you be filled with the good things – the bounties of His House!