1-30-2025

Good Morning All,

  Exodus 3:8; “and I have come down…to bring them to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey,” 

    So how much would this land sell for? How do we decide the value of land? Is it the proximity to us, is it the productivity, can there be sentimental value? What is it worth?  Much of the land has higher taxes now than the original purchase price.  So, as we were talking about land and what determines its value.  Why does land, or a house, or a car sell for the price that it does?  What are the factors that play into the value of the item?  If the item is being auctioned, it really comes down to a very simple answer: two people want it.  If those two people have enough money, it can be very expensive indeed.

    Yet when you get done, there has to be some level of intrinsic value of the item sold.  Land that is rich and highly productive or is easily developed and can be sold that way, cause the value of the land to be influenced.  So why was the land of Canaan called a land flowing with milk and honey? If you look at the topography of the land it is not that great.  The rainfall isn’t ideal; they usually have to trap rainwater in cistern-like things in order to preserve water.  The land produced food and fiber but the land of Egypt along the Nile was more productive or the land along the Tigris and the Euphrates in Babylon was more productive.  Why was this land so special?

    The real value of the land wasn’t in the land; it was in the company.  The land to which God is referring here is the land where God’s people live trusting in the gracious providence of God.  It is where the people of God live as contented children of their heavenly Father.  The land flowing with milk and honey is more about your relationship with God than the productivity of the land.  This applies to all of our life situations.

    God encourages us to be content and happy with his gifts.  He supplies with all that we have need of.  He even gives us more than we need; yet we often fail to see this.  Too often we see God’s blessings as our entitlements.  We see them as something which God owes to us.  This sinful nature view of God’s gift is what causes us to be restless, to be dissatisfied with God’s gifts for us. 

     God blesses us every day and in every way which we can imagine and many which we cannot.  The Creator-Redeemer provides, protects, sustains and delivers to us and for us every day in every way.  All of which we are to only thank and praise, serve and obey him.  The Lord brings you into his family into a land flowing with milk and honey.  Let us feast and enjoy his bounty.

Gracious Father, your mercies overwhelm us in depth and volume.  You bring to us the things we need, especially our Savior who brings to us life.  Guard and protect us and give us that sense of contentment which we need.  In Jesus’ precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret