SPRINGS FORTH NOW 2023

Balaam said, “Build me seven altars here, and prepare seven bulls and seven rams for me.”  Balak did as Balaam said, and the two of them offered a bull and a ram on each altar.  Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I go aside. Perhaps the Lord will come to meet with me. Whatever he reveals to me I will tell you.” Then he went off to a barren height.  God met with him, and Balaam said, “I have prepared seven altars, and on each altar I have offered a bull and a ram.”  The Lord put a word in Balaam’s mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”  So he went back to him and found him standing beside his offering, with all the Moabite officials.  Then Balaam spoke his message: “Balak brought me from Aram, the king of Moab from the eastern mountains.  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘curse Jacob for me; come, denounce Israel.’  How can I curse those whom God has not cursed?  How can I denounce those whom the Lord has not denounced?  From the rocky peaks I see them, from the heights I view them.  I see a people who live apart and do not consider themselves one of the nations.  Who can count the dust of Jacob or number even a fourth of Israel?  Let me die the death of the righteous, and may my final end be like theirs!”  Balak said to Balaam, “What have you done to me? I brought you to curse my enemies, but you have done nothing but bless them!”  He answered, “Must I not speak what the Lord puts in my mouth?”  Then Balak said to him, “Come with me to another place where you can see them; you will not see them all but only the outskirts of their camp. And from there, curse them for me.”  So he took him to the field of Zophim on the top of Pisgah, and there he built seven altars and offered a bull and a ram on each altar.  Balaam said to Balak, “Stay here beside your offering while I meet with him over there.”  The Lord met with Balaam and put a word in his mouth and said, “Go back to Balak and give him this word.”  So he went to him and found him standing beside his offering, with the Moabite officials. Balak asked him, “What did the Lord say?”  Then he spoke his message: “Arise, Balak, and listen; hear me, son of Zippor.  God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.  Does he speak and then not act?  Does he promise and not fulfill?  I have received a command to bless; he has blessed, and I cannot change it.

Numbers 23:1-20 (NIV)

We have arrived at the last day of the year and are on the brink of something new with the key within us to determine what will be next.  This year with all of its ups and downs, twists and turns we have made it, not because we deserve it or that it has been easy, instead, if we are honest, it has been because of the grace, unmerited favor, of God.  God chose you and me and worked out everything for our good, whether we can see it or not, all along the way, establishing the fact that God Is With You and me, wherever we are and whatever is going on.  Now instead of regretting or wringing our hands about what is next, get up, press forward, and Open Up The Way, the proof is in the pudding, you have made it and God says there is yet more.  Life with its challenges, and yes some people, places, and things have tried to take you out but here you are because of the favor of God, God Is With You and what He has blessed, no one and nothing can curse.  Weapons may form but they will not prosper, get up and celebrate as well as continue to press forward for your higher calling, apprehend that which has already apprehended you; live, move, and have your being in your Most Favored Status from God!