OCTOBER 27

ENOUGH, AND TO SPARE

“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father… (Luke 15:17-18)

Having spent all that he had, wasting his substance in riotous living, the prodigal finally came “to himself,” faced up to his desperate need, knew that self could offer no more, and a return to father’s house was imperative. In his father’s house even the hired servants had abundant, over and above every need, enough and to spare.

Father’s provision is always “ENOUGH AND TO SPARE,” though we struggle along in selfhood’s rebellion, striving to go our own way and do our own thing. But if we ever “come to our self,” face up to what self is doing to us, and where self has brought us, then we’ll abandon the pursuits of self, and seek Father’s house again, to live in the abundance of His provisions.

“For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.” (2 Cor. 1:5). For this word aboundeth, Williams trans. Gives, “runs over the cup.” Overflowing and superabounding until it runs over the cup, that is “enough and to spare.”

It is true, present life is often filled with the sufferings of Christ until they seem to run over our cup and splash out everywhere. But this is not the end of the situation, nor should we always be “suffering conscious,” because the consolations of Christ also run over the cup. There can be an overflowing life in the midst of present travail and suffering. There is something missing in the concept of how it will be “only glory by and by.” True, with all things reconciled and restored the sorrows of the night will have passed away, all tears been wiped away. But the glory of the ultimate does not take away from the FACT that there is consolation NOW which is “enough and to spare”, much more than any of the negativism. “Moreover, God is powerful to make every grace superabound to you in order that having always an all-sufficiency in all things, you may superabound to every good work.” (2 Cor. 9:8, Wuest).

Ray Prinzing