WHERE ARE MY NUGGETS, MY GOLD OF OPHIR? ~Becky Leslie

Hi Family and friends...

May this week be the most blessed week...

May we see the world through the eyes of God and not miss a sigh or tear of someone who is hurting or in pain around us. May we reach out to the lost and forgotten ones. May we be imitators of Christ. 

God is sure on the move, He will cause the Body of Christ to shine so... bright, that every power of darkness will be dispelled and overpowered!

May we be His light as Jesus was and is the light! 

Let us choose to rejoice and sing even in midst of opposition from the evil one, rejection, pain because God is with us through it all! 

He will raise us up! He is the Glory n The Lifter of our head.

Last week was so...blessed by something our daughter Becky wrote for "Kerygma", our Church weekly newsletter. 

Let us lay our all at our Savior's feet...!

Stay blessed...

In Christ...

Julia

WHERE ARE MY NUGGETS, MY GOLD OF OPHIR?

When we go through tough times, challenging situations and turmoil in our lives; it’s good for us to have something to come back to in God’s Word that will put our lives back in perspective. If we don’t have a close relationship with the Word of God and keep coming back to it to derive our strength, portion and substance from it; we are sure to end up allowing our circumstances to get the best of us. 

The book of Job has always been that source of timely perspective for me. Surely, Job went through far much than any of us have been through and his life sort of covers almost every situation a Christian could possibly walk in. Dealing with financial loss? Job did too! Mourning the death of a loved one? Job did too! Have a sickness or illness you’re battling? Job did too! Have friends that criticize you? Job did too! Have marital problems? Job did too! Have people falsely accusing you? Hello, Job did too! Don’t know when your chaos and pain will end? Job didn't either! Don’t know why God doesn't seem to be moving on your behalf? Job didn't either. You get the drift of what I’m saying. This is a great book to come back to at any time and be encouraged. 

So, getting to what I actually intended to share in this article...here’s a portion I read a few days back and have been meditating on. It’s Job chapter 22: 24, 25 (NIV): “If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you.” 

Since I read this, I started asking the Holy Spirit to teach me what it meant to “assign my nuggets to the dust, my gold of Ophir”. I was lead to read about Ophir in the Bible and its significance. 

This is what I learnt: 

• The land of Ophir has been mentioned a few times in the Bible but always in reference to its gold. 

• 1 Kings 9:28 speaks of how King Solomon sent ships to Ophir to bring back the best gold from there into his kingdom. 

• 1 Kings 10:11 tells us that when the wealthy Queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon she gifted him the gold of Ophir. 

• 1 Chronicles 29:4 shows us how the gold of Ophir was brought in to build the temple of God. 

• Isaiah 13:12 refers to the gold of Ophir as a rare thing.

• In Psalm 45, David sings to the Lord saying, “at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir”.

The Lord started to stir my spirit and show me that He isn’t looking for the best that we can give him at any given point. He isn’t looking for a people who will give him a certain place in their lives. He even isn’t looking to be ‘a part’ of  our daily routines. He wants our everything! Everything. 

Church, even as we go through a month of learning from this theme “Let Us Build”, I’d like to share some hard truths about building His Kingdom that the Lord has been teaching me. If we don’t lay down our everything — our best and our worst, our firsts and our lasts, our strengths and our weaknesses and everything we consider precious and hold close to our hearts — if we don’t lay all this down and bury it in the dust, there honestly will be no “building” at all. 

The verse uses the word ‘nuggets’? Nuggets are small pieces not huge boulders. What are those small areas in our lives that are so precious to us, that we’d rather keep them in our hands than bury them in the ground? Is it a dream that we’d like to see fulfilled? Is it a relationship we’d like to have or maintain? Is it a love for money or a desire for success? Is it a need to be seen, heard and noticed? What are these nuggets that we choose to hold on to?

What is our ‘gold of Ophir’? People went on missions to look for gold in Ophir. What is our life mission? Are we on a search for significance? Is the conquest of our lives something materialistic or temporary or earthly? If so, are we willing to bury our gold of Ophir — our prized accomplishments, our unique talents, our expensive efforts, our costly callings, our lavish desires and extravagant objectives. 

You’ll notice that the verse clearly says that only when we render our nuggets useless and assign it to the dust and our gold of Ophir to the rocks, only then will God be the choicest of gold for us. 

Church, if we are passionate about building anything for the Lord, how can we start unless buried deep in the foundations are the things we consider precious? The Lord is looking to build a Church in these last days, that will stand on a foundation of precious stones that are the sacrifices made by Christians who have given their everything to Him. This last day Church will stand on a grave that has buried deep inside it dead desires, dead dreams and Christians dead to their flesh. 

Are you willing to be a part of this end time remnant? If so, ask yourself this today: “Where are my nuggets, my gold of Ophir?” 

God richly bless you this week and may you have your own revelation of the King and His Kingdom. 

In Him, 

Becky Leslie.