Tag: provision

Our Cupboard Will Overflow When We Answer God’s Call

1 Kings 17:16
The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah.

Elijah, in accordance with God’s directive, went to the widow in Zarephath and requested that she make him some bread to eat. She told Elijah that she could not feed him because she only had enough flour and oil to feed her and her son one more meal. She then told Elijah if she fed him that her and her son would die because their food supply would be exhausted. Elijah told the woman if she made his meal first that her supply would never be exhausted. And so it was by the word of the Lord.

When we feel the call of the Lord to fulfill a service or a charity, we should never concern ourselves with what is in our cupboard. The Lord will always supply what we need to fulfill His work. And when the work is done, our cupboard will overflow just as the widow’s did.

It is God’s way and it is to His glory to make use of and put honor upon the weak and foolish things of the world. It makes perfect sense that He would want to use us to do His good work. We certainly fit the bill of the weak and foolish. May we stand ready to proclaim His glory through the work that we do for Him.

Like the poor widow, let us put all of our faith in God. Let us learn to ignore the carnal counsel that comes from the world around us. Let us rejoice as we see our cupboards overflow.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for calling us to be of service to Your kingdom. We rejoice in knowing that You will equip us to do whatever You call us to do. We exalt You as You bless us, knowing we will be a blessing to others. We pray that we will never question our ability or our resources as You raise us up as instruments of Your good work. We pray that all that we do will be praise and glory to You, to Your Son Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit. We ask all these things in the name of the One who calls us to Himself, Jesus Christ.

The Greater Blessings of Those in Close Fellowship with God

Psalm 91:1
He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

In this world, to live in someone’s shadow is generally thought to be an undesirable place. It is regarded as a place where you cannot live up to the standards of the one who preceded you. In the kingdom of God, quite the opposite is true. Living in the shadow of Almighty God enables us to be more than we could believe to be possible.

Loving faith in Almighty God on our part will always be met by faithful love, protection and provision on God’s part. His covering of us is much greater than we can imagine. If we are abiding in Him, there is no limit to His shadow that is over us. He protects us at all times from natural and supernatural enemies. He makes our homes secure. He is our refuge in every storm.

But it does not stop there for those that seek to live in His shadow. He invites us to enjoy so much more. There is a special nuance in this passage that must not be overlooked. The blessings spoken of in today’s passage can be greater for those believers who live in ongoing, close fellowship with God. The delightful fullness of these most high blessings are for those who habitually abide in the shadow of Almighty God. Those who stand in continuous communion with God set themselves up to become possessors of rare and special benefits.

Let us seek the grace to be constant refugees in the fortress of Almighty God. Let us enjoy the fullness of His shadow.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, thank You for the shadow of protection and provision that You place over us when we surrender our lives to You. We bless the name of Jesus who has made it possible for us to come to Your mercy seat. We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will guide us and strengthen us as we seek to abide under Your shadow. May our hearts be prepared to seek that secret place of constant communion where we can access the fullness of Your most high blessings. We ask all these things in the name of the One whose mercies never end, Jesus Christ.

Finding Supernatural Nourishment and Eternal Sustenance

John 6:33
For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

The Jews were accustomed to the idea that bread could come down from heaven. But the bread that they were familiar with came only to supply their natural needs. The manna that they had received came down from the lower heavens. John was writing to them about a new bread that would come to them from the upper heavens. John was teaching them about a new bread that was not for sustaining natural life, but for the giving of spiritual and eternal life. John was revealing to them the bread of God, Jesus Christ. John was confirming that God was still in the business of provision, but He was extending His giving from beyond the natural to the supernatural. In His excellency, Almighty God was offering the Jews a bread that was infinitely superior to the manna of old.

Give us this day our daily bread. How many times have we prayed this and thought only of our fleshly provision? Have we forgotten what Jesus Himself said? The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”

Christ taught that He is the true Bread. He wanted His disciples to understand that He is supernaturally to the spirit what bread is naturally to the flesh. As our bodies are nourished by grain, Jesus nourishes and supports our spiritual life. He is the Bread of God.

Let us remember both the natural and supernatural provision that our precious Lord provides us when we ask for our daily bread. Let us seek both that which strengthens us physically and that which strengthens us by the supernatural power of the One who was crucified for our sins. Let us give thanks for our eternal sustenance.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing both our physical and spiritual nourishment. We exalt Your name for the harvest that You bring into our lives to be the natural provision for our bodies. We praise You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to be the supernatural nourishment and eternal sustenance that we need for our spirit-filled lives. We pray that the Holy Spirit will prepare our hearts so that we will receive a full portion of the nourishment of Jesus Christ for our souls. May everything we do be in remembrance of Our Savior and what He did for us. As You nourish us with Your True Bread, Father, may we provide nourishment to those who are in need of the way, the truth and the life that is in Jesus. We ask all these things in the name of the Lord of all provision, Jesus Christ.

Trusting in the Father’s Promise to Provide for Us

Matthew 6:30
If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you–you of little faith?

Gorgeous are the wild flowers that fill our fields in the spring and the summer. They pop up everywhere without a hint of human intervention. They are here with us for only a brief time before succumbing to the seasons. Yet year after year, God raises them up and displays them spectacularly as just one tiny example of His loving providence. How is it possible that we doubt the provision and protection of Our Father in heaven when He is so loyal to even the small plants with their limited life cycles? Do we not have enough faith to see how much more He would provide for His children who He holds so dear as to grant them eternal life?

We have allowed the cares of the world to come in and diminish our faith in the promises of Almighty God. We have followed the world’s lead and put our faith in our own independence instead of in the hands of Our Creator. We have tried to satisfy ourselves in all the things of the world instead of the perfect provision of Our Loving Father in heaven. In the process, we have complicated our lives to the point that we cannot be satisfied.

Let us seek the simplicity and satisfaction of the promised provision that is ours to claim from the One who never breaks His promises. Let us trust that His planned provision for us is more than sufficient and is far more satisfying than anything that the world has to offer.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for providing for our every need. We rejoice in knowing that all the treasures of Your kingdom are ours through the eternal inheritance secured for us by Your Son, Jesus. We pray, Father, that you will help us break our worldly appetites that are impossible to satisfy. Strengthen us, O Lord, that we may bear up to our daily troubles, stand up against our temptations and allow none of these things to move us away from You. Help us to seek You, Father God. We pray all these things in the name of our endless fount of provision, Jesus Christ.

Trusting That God is Who He Says He Is

Isaiah 41:10
So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Almighty God, in faithfulness to His promises, releases provisions to supply our needs and answer our prayers. He knows that our way to heaven is through our carnal wilderness. When we become weary, He is ready to provide what the world cannot provide. He insures that our supply is constant and sufficient. Let us set our troubles before Him.

Why is it that we ever doubt for a second that the Lord has a plan already set in place to relieve us of whatever burden that troubles us? Did He not set aside His own glory to become man to have a plan for our salvation? Did He not shed His own blood so that the plan could be executed on our behalf? Does He not hold all power and wisdom in His hand? When He has done so much already, why would He withhold any good thing from us now?

Let us humble ourselves before Almighty God. He reigns over everything in heaven and on earth. Let us trust in Him to fulfill His promises in our lives. Let us rely on Him for our strength and our peace.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your faithfulness. We bless the name of Jesus who gave up everything so that we could receive the fullness of Your perfect love and forgiveness. We rejoice in knowing that Your Holy Spirit is always with us to comfort us and strengthen us. We pray, Lord, that you forgive us for being so weak in our faith. We ask that You strengthen our spiritual nature so that we are seeking our comfort and provision from You and not from this world. Let us always be mindful that all things are possible through You. We pray these things in the name of Our Blessed Hope and Assurance, Jesus Christ.

True Satisfaction Comes through Jesus Christ

John 7:37
On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.”

Jesus went with his disciples to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. The feast began five days after the Day of Atonement at the time the fall harvest had just been completed. It was a time of joyous celebration as the Israelites celebrated God’s continued provision for them in the current harvest and remembered His provision and protection during the 40 years in the wilderness. The celebration for the feast lasted for 8 days. It was a grand feast by earthly measures.

On the last and greatest day of the feast, every man and woman would have surely filled themselves with food and drink and enjoyed and experienced all that the celebration had to offer them. Yet Jesus knew that there would still be a hunger there that was unsatisfied. He welcomed them to come to Him for the satisfaction that only He could provide.

As we stand here at the end of our year and our Christmas season, the same holds true for us today. God has protected us and provided for us as we have gone through yet another wild year in our out-of-control world. We have just completed a season of celebration. We have over-filled ourselves with food, drink, gifts and festive experiences. Yet somehow we are not satisfied.

Let us take our thirst and our hunger to the One who waits to satisfy us. Let us learn to feast in the real provision of this holiday season, Jesus Christ. Let us share our fullness of spirit with the world.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for all the provisions and protections that You have provided throughout the past year. We bless the name of Jesus through whom all of Your grace, mercy and loving kindness has been released to us. We confess, Lord, that we have filled ourselves on all the world has offered and yet we are still unsatisfied. We pray that Your Holy Spirit will guide us and strengthen us as we learn to forsake the world and surrender completely to Your Son who invites us into His life. May we live in the fullness and glory of His presence. We ask all these things in the name of the One who supplies our strength, our power and our eternal satisfaction, Jesus Christ.

At Christmas Time Children Teach Us All We Need to Know about Our Heavenly Father

Matthew 18:3
Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

What a wonderful time Christmas is to a small child in our culture. They go to bed on Christmas Eve eagerly anticipating the arrival of the gift giver. They burst from their beds on Christmas morning knowing that they will find gifts with their names on them under the Christmas tree. Many of the gifts will be there simply for their pleasure. Other gifts will be there for their comfort and provision. They receive them all with great joy. All the while, they never doubt that the gift giver will provide for them that which they could not provide for themselves.

This is the type of reliance that God wants to see from all of us. God wants us to rely on Him for everything without ever considering that we could provide for ourselves just as well. Of course, the gifts that He gives to us are far more valuable than anything we could find under a tree. Almighty God provides us with the gift of life. He sustains our lives with every single breath we take. Along the way, He sees that our pleasures, our provisions and our comforts are taken care of. Then He provides the greatest gift of all – eternal life in His heavenly kingdom. All He ever asks from us is to accept His Son as Our Savior.

Let us learn to respond to Our Heavenly Father like small children. Let us run to Him for everything. Let us seek the arms of our gracious Father whether we need comfort, provision or direction. Let us rejoice in knowing that He has the power to provide whatever it is that we need or desire. Most of all, let us completely trust in Him for the true treasures of His eternal kingdom.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the blessings and the benefits that we receive as Your children. We bless the name of Jesus who made it possible for us to inherit Your kingdom and all of its provision and protection for all eternity. We pray, Father, that we be renewed in our minds so that we may become as simple, as humble and as teachable as small children. May we discard forever all the self-seeking lifestyles, distrust and deceit that we learn from the world. May we walk in the excellence of Our Savior. We ask all these things in the name of Our Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ.

The Long Journeys of Intercessory Prayer for Salvation

Mark 2:5
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

As we examine God’s Word, we find that Jesus never healed anyone physically without mentioning that their sins had been forgiven. It is the will of God the Father that none shall perish. It is consistent with our position as disciples of Jesus Christ that we focus our prayers on the needs of the unsaved people who surround us. We surely may pray for their natural needs, but our responsibility as true intercessors calls us to pray first for their supernatural needs. The proper prayers of an intercessor will always focus first on salvation and then on provision, just as Jesus focused on deliverance and then healing.

As we take on our intercessory roles for salvation, we need to know that often we will be on a long journey. Jesus, who controls the timing of all things, understands that the journey can seem unbearably long to us at times. He is well aware that in our weakness we tend to give up when we see those around us losing the battle to time. Thus, in Luke 18:1, Jesus taught us “to always pray and not lose heart”. In doing so, He sought to give us confidence in knowing that all things are set and delivered according to His perfect eternal timing. And He certainly sought to emphasize that He never drops any man from His salvation plan nor should we.

Let us seek deliverance first, then healing. Let us come into agreement with the Father’s will that no man shall perish. Let us not lose heart when we find ourselves on the long journeys of intercessory prayer for salvation.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You giving us Your Son to instruct us how to pray in accordance with Your will for all men. We ask for the supernatural inspiration to pray for all the people who surround us. We pray for the fortitude to maintain our battle for their salvation even when it seems that the war is being lost. We beseech You, Father, that You would show us how to bring our prayers into alignment with the plans that You have for those that we pray for. We celebrate our roles as intercessors. May You bless us, Lord, by allowing us to see the fruit of our labors. We ask all these things in the name of the Deliver and Healer of all men, Jesus Christ.

God’s Contractual Duty to Deliver on His Promises to Us

Genesis 9:13
I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth.

Almighty God provided the rainbow as a sign to all living creatures that He would never flood the earth again. When we see a rainbow, we are certainly reminded of His covenant with us. But why stop with the intermittent rainbow? We can look at all of creation and be constantly reminded of the many other covenants and promises that Our Heavenly Father has set aside for us. He has so many promises of provision and protection that are ours to claim. We serve a perfectly gracious God that is bound to deliver to us the awards of His contracts with us.

Unfortunately, we spend more time seeking the good things of the earth instead of the good things that God has in store for us. While the good things we seek in life may indeed be things that any righteous person would deem good, they will fall short of satisfying us if they are not what God has in His will and plan for our lives.

The irony is that getting the good things from God is so simple. All we have to do is abide in Him and we will be given all the good things that He promises us. We need to seek the relationship first and He will provide all the things that He knows will satisfy us perfectly.

Let us become spiritual attorneys. Let us work to discover every contract that Almighty God has agreed to on our behalf. Let us strive to come into right relationship with His covenants. Let us proceed to the courts of heaven and present our claims. Let us rejoice as we learn to live in the fullness of His awards.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the many promises that You have made to us through Your Holy Word. We praise Jesus, who made it possible for us to receive all that You have set aside for us. We humbly come before You, Father, to proclaim our desire to spend our lives seeking an intimate relationship with Your Son instead of seeking the things of this world. We pray that Your grace be with us always as we learn to choose the good things of Your kingdom over the good things of this earth. We ask all these things in the name of the fulfillment of Your covenant with us, Jesus Christ.

Coming Into Alignment with God’s Timing

Proverbs 3:5
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.

Through His love, His grace and His mercy, we are called to be servants of Almighty God here on earth and in heaven for all eternity. We were created in His image for this purpose in order to bring Him praise and glory. Being conscious of our own weakness, we should wait on and look to Our Master for our direction and our strength.

Our focus needs to be on God at all times. We should be expectant that He will direct our ways and make provision for the fulfillment of our calling. We should understand that He will set the limits of how high He is ready for us to go and He will set the timing of when we will get there. We should recognize that He knows exactly what He has planned for our lives and the lives of those around us.

If we focus on our problems or our visions without including Our Heavenly Father in the process, we will set expectations for ourselves that are outside of God’s will for our lives. We will be setting ourselves up for burn out or for seeing results that are disappointing to us. It is almost certain that we will not go as high as God had planned for us or that we will give up on our calling before it is fulfilled because we are not in tune with God’s timing.

Let us make Jesus Christ the Master over our lives. Let us seek the will of Our Master in everything that we do. Let us lean not on our personal plans. Let us serve Our Lord and Our King in accordance with the perfectly timed, perfect plans that He has set aside for us.

Prayer
Heavenly Father, we thank You for allowing us to be Your servants. We rejoice in knowing that just as the slaves went to their master for their direction and all of their needs, we can go to You for everything in our lives. We pray, Lord, that just as the slaves waited on their master before they did anything, we will learn to wait on the direction of Your Holy Spirit before we take on anything. We ask that we learn to rely on Your hand, Almighty God. May we reach the fullness of service that You have planned for us. We ask all these things in the name of Our Lord, Our Master and Our King, Jesus Christ.