12 Items Or Less

2 Chronicles 20:25 – “And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil of them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away: and they were three days in gathering of the spoil, it was so much.” 

Now, that’s a scripture that will get you shouting!  I believe that on the other side of your battle, there’s abundance.  Last week, I stopped at the grocery store, picked up two gallons of Raspberry Iced Tea, and went to the Express Checkout for “12 items or less”.  The woman in front of me was loading her MORE than 12 items onto the belt.  The patient man that I am, uh-hem, I started counting how many items she had and she was about 4-5 items over…appalling!  How dare she!  After I thought about it, I realized how quickly it is for me to revert back to “the law” mentality.  I quickly corrected myself, and thanked God that He doesn’t put a limit on blessing us at “12 items or less”.  Imagine Him saying, “You got your allotted favor this month, you’re all out, no more for you”.  No, a thousand times no!  There’s no allotted amount, there’s no quota, the blessing of God just keeps coming on your “conveyer belt”.  And if it appears someone has a few more blessings than you, rejoice with them, yours is waiting for you, because God blessed everyone exactly the same through the cross of Christ! 

In 2 Chronicles, they received a supernatural defeat of three armies, just by opening their mouth in praise.  Now, there’s a word for the church.  We need to spend more time praising and thanking God for what He’s already done, and less time complaining and asking God to do what He’s already done.  When they went to see, every one of their enemies was killed and it took three days to pick up all the “stuff” that was left.  I can just imagine some of you spending three days at Macy’s Department Store loading up for three full days, whatever you wanted, no limit!  

That’s the mentality God wants us to have.  You can’t go over the allotted amount of favor and blessing and goodness, because there isn’t one.  He’s already blessed us with every blessing through Christ (Eph 1:3), above and beyond what we can think or imagine (Phil 3:20).  Think “over and above”! Give over and “above”! Live “over and above”!  No more, 12 items or less!