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WIDE OPEN (Psalm 81)

Are you enjoying all God has for you as a believer?

I am not talking about material things or financial wealth. This is not the prosperity gospel. I am asking if you are enjoying all that Jesus Christ paid for at Calvary. Are you living in His fullness and spiritual riches, or as a spiritual pauper when God has so much more for you?

Notice verse 10 of Psalm 81: “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

These are the words of a loving Father. Nearly anyone who is a parent has played a game with a child in an attempt to get his or her mouth open for feeding. Sometimes getting the child to cooperate can be a daunting task. Imagine how the Lord feels when He has so much to give His children but they are not receptive.

Is your mouth open?

It was reportedly a custom in ancient times for a king, if he wanted to do a special favor for an honored guest, to ask that guest to open his or her mouth. Then the servants would come by with sweet delicacies and even jewels to place in their open mouths. I wouldn’t mind getting in on that.

Now think about the King of Kings, who has so much to give you if you were only willing to receive it. A loving Father and a mighty King — that is our God.

It isn’t a matter of how much He will give. The question is how wide you will open your mouth. There is no limit to what He has; the only limit is on what we are ready to receive.

The funny thing is that when we open our mouths, it is usually to give. That is not always a good thing. We are too ready and willing to share our opinions and to talk about anything and everything. But God wants us to open our mouths so that He can fill them.

1. There is a principle to obey.

God is always looking for open people. Are you wide open to God? Are you open to Him in prayer, in faith, in your expectancy?

The open mouth in this psalm is simply a picture of an open heart. If you want to get what He has for you, you must be open to receiving it.

2. There is a promise to claim.

The words “I will” in verse 10 are a reminder to us of our emptiness and His sufficiency. My life is a small clay bucket that sometimes leaks, but I can bring it to the well that is always full and the fountain that is always flowing.

I cannot always be at my best and neither can you, but all we have to do is keep coming to the God who is always at His best. If you are not at your best today, God still is. This is a revelation of His fullness and His sufficiency.

The Bible says in Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” That is just another way of saying, “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.”

3. There is a proof to remember.

Keep in mind that verse 10 did not begin with what God would do. It began with who He is. The promise came afterward. “I am” always precedes “I will.”

This promise is based on the unchanging character and nature of our faithful God. If you read the first nine verses, that is really what it is all about. The God who led His people out of Egypt and opened the Red Sea wants you now to open your life to Him so He can open all of His riches to you.

Have you ever stayed in a hotel with an adjoining room? Adjoining rooms require guests on both sides to open their doors for access. Imagine you are in an adjoining room to Heaven. The Father’s door is always open; in fact, He tore off the doorknob and threw away the key. Heaven is wide-open to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, but if you keep your door closed there is no access.

Once you open your door, you will find that God’s door is already open to you. Just as He opened His riches to the writer of Psalm 81, He will do the same for you. There is a past, present and future tense in this psalm that is beautiful: God has, God is, and God will. We need only be open to Him.

As glorious and positive as verse 10 is, it does not end that way.

Verses 11-16: “But my people would not hearken to my voice; and Israel would none of me. So I gave them up unto their own hearts' lust: and they walked in their own counsels. Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways! I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned my hand against their adversaries. The haters of the Lord should have submitted themselves unto him: but their time should have endured for ever. He should have fed them also with the finest of the wheat: and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.”

If we do not open ourselves to God’s fullness, think of what we miss. I have marked in my Bible where “the people would not,” but then we see what God “should have” done. It did not happen because they did not open themselves to Him.

It was the famous poet John Greenleaf Whittier who wrote, “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.” It is tragic to think that Psalm 81 is the psalm of what should have been or might have been.

Listen to the sad heart of God, who is saying, “I have so much more for you. Why are you living like a pauper when you have access to the Father’s house?” It is like the prodigal son when he finally comes to his senses and realizes that his father’s hired servants were living so much better than he was.

The most frightening thought I have in my own life is not what I get because of my sin, but what I miss. I think about standing before almighty God one day and hearing Him say, “Here are all the blessings I had for you, but you would not trust Me. Here are all of the answers to prayer for which you never asked. And here are all of the things I wanted to do through your life, but you would not obey Me.”

You do not want to get to Heaven only to discover so much more that God had for you. Remember these words: “I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt: open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.”