Acts 20:32 — And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

The thought process that started a few days ago with the thoughts about fainting on the way have led me to a consideration of the inheritance God promises to those who follow Him with an obedient heart.
When it talks of inheritance the Old Testament focuses on the land promised to the Jews through the covenant promised to Abraham and his descendants. In the New Testament the focus shifts to the promise of eternal salvation and a place in the Kingdom of God — the reality of which Israel is just an earthly foretaste.
In Judaism, the law is an inheritance for believers. For Christians, salvation is the inheritance obtained by grace. What is more, it starts at the moment we take Christ as Lord and Savior and stretches into eternity.
But there is another beautiful twist to this whole question of inheritance. In the Old Testament, the firstborn of Israel were God’s portion – His inheritance. In the New Testament it is clear that the church – the unity of believers – becomes the Father’s inheritance. We are “the riches of His glory in the saints” (Ephesians 1:18) Warren Wiersbe comments on this phrase:

This phrase does not refer to our inheritance in Christ (Eph. 1:11), but His inheritance in us. This is an amazing truth—that God should look on us as a part of His great wealth! Just as a man’s wealth brings glory to his name, so God will get glory from the church because of what He has invested in us. When Jesus Christ returns, we shall be “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:6).

How beautiful is this picture? In Ephesians 1:13 Paul tells us that God is the inheritance of the saints. In 1:18 he tells us that the saints are the inheritance of God.
Now let us go back to the start of my trail. Jesus had compassion on the multitude because they might faint by the way. We need have no doubt that He will have compassion on us when we are close to fainting by the way — whether our weariness arises from physical, emotional, or spiritual exhaustion. We find that if we endure, and remain obedient, we are promised the inheritance of the faithful. Now we can also see that part of that wonderful promise is that we become, in some way, a gift to God Himself, part of His inheritance — in accepting His gift of grace we give ourselves back to Him! I’m not fainting by the way any more …