faith – Page 3 – I AM for You!

When God loves another through you, all three of you are blessed.

One man gives freely, yet gains even more;

another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.

A generous man will prosper;

he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

Proverbs 11:24-25 NIV84

He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD,

and he will reward him for what he has done.

Proverbs 19:17 NIV84

A generous man will himself be blessed,

for he shares his food with the poor.

Proverbs 22:09 NIV84

He who oppresses the poor

shows contempt for their Maker,

but whoever is kind to the needy

honors God.

Proverbs 14:31 NIV84

Seek first his kingdom (Jesus is the King)

and his righteousness (Jesus gives us His righteousness),

and all these things (food, clothing and shelter)

will be added unto you as well.

Matthew 6:33

“Then the righteous will answer Him, saying,
‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?
When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?
Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’
And the King will answer and say to them,
‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren,
you did it to Me.’
Matthew 25:37-40 NKJV

When I don’t give freely for the benefit of others one of the reasons is that I fear I won’t have enough for myself. I used to force myself to give and when I did give I would find no joy in it at all. But the above verses point to another way. What would happen to my giving – and to me – if I didn’t have to worry about running out of money (resources)? What would happen if, when God told me to give more than I thought I could afford, I trusted God to miraculously provide what I needed ? God, who wrote the above verses, and who cannot lie, said that if I am generous I will: gain even more, prosper, be refreshed, be rewarded, be blessed, and honor God.

But being generous takes guts. I have to rely on the unseen. My only guarantee that my finances will work out is that God’s Word promises God will come through for me when I obey Him. I have to put Him to the test. But when I do put Him to the test, He comes through and I experience His joy.

Satan doesn’t like this, and always throws doubt into my mind, trying to get me to believe the lie that God doesn’t fulfill His promises. Satan says, “It’s a coincidence.” “That would have happened anyway.” “People will think you’re crazy if you tell them, ‘God did it miraculously.'” But if you give God the credit due Him, He will provide you a list of proofs. My more recent list includes: When neither my wife nor I had a job and we decided to continue giving to the ministries we usually give to, at the same level as we always had – we always had enough to pay the bills each month. We tithe, and without me looking for it, I received an email from out of nowhere advertising the job of my dreams. I was hired for the job of my dreams while doing a double tithing challenge. I needed hearing aids to do my new job and God provided them for me though the sacrificial giving of others.

The biggest benefit of giving isn’t in the pocketbook but in the soul. I enjoy giving now (except for the times I don’t have the guts to trust God). And I don’t give to get rich. I’ve specifically asked God not to make me rich and not to make me poor, but to give me what I need for today and tomorrow.

“Two things I ask of you, O LORD; do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.

Proverbs 30:7-9 NIV84

When I held onto what I had with a tight fist I didn’t have enough. When I opened my hand to help others, God refilled my open hand to give again and again. God wants to do good through you, won’t you trust Him enough to let Him?

Obeying God and Putting His Promises to the Test

Sometimes, after you have been a Christian for a while, you have so much of your life, relationships and self invested in “God” that the thought of Him not coming through for you and therefore having proof He is not real is terrifying. To find out that what you have based your life on is a lie is too embarrassing a thought to deal with. So, we hedge our bets. We pray, “God, you said that if I put you first, as Lord and Savior, you would provide for me and my family. But if you don’t, I will still love you and trust you and feel the same way about you”. This may sound good, but I suggest that this kind of faith is not honored in the Bible. What is most important to God is our intimacy with Him, our trust in Him, our faith in Him. And God says in the Bible that this faith is more precious than gold. It is so important to God that He will rock our world until we come to the point of saying, “God, I have put You first. You said that if I did, you would supply food, clothing and shelter for me and my family. You have to come through for me. I have no plan “B”. You promised you would and I am holding You to it. If you don’t, then I have no reason to trust You anymore.”

God doesn’t say not to put Him to the test. God says not to put Him to a foolish test. Satan suggested to Jesus that He jump off the top of the temple because God promised to send His angels to hold Him up. Jesus answered that it is written, do not put God to a foolish test. If God says He will do something for you when you obey Him, He wants you to test that. Obey Him and then hold Him accountable for what He promised. That’s not a foolish test. That’s faith.

And here’s my disclaimer: Though I have had success in trusting God, I have also experienced complete hypocritical failure at trusting God. I am not an expert. For every time I have trusted God and seen Him keep His promises, I have not trusted Him multiple times (with disastrous results). A turning point in my life came when I trusted God and obeyed His teaching by refusing to participant in the production of certain advertising promoting what I felt was pornography, abortion, or the occult. I risked my family’s main means of support because of this apparent insubordination. Many true friends prayed for us. God gave me the chance to talk about His heart of love and concern for people to top levels of management. God softened the heart of the main decision maker who eventually said I could go back to work without having to touch these ads. (True to God’s style, five years later He had this same company ask me to write large religion section advertising telling people about the love and acceptance of Jesus. This series of ads ran for fourteen years).

You’d think I would have “lived happily ever after”. However, less than two weeks after being cleared to not do these ads, I caved in to the gripping fear of losing my livelihood. I moved an objectionable ad from its wrong position on the page to the right position, an ad I previously said I would not touch even to the point of losing my job. I did it because I was afraid people would think of me as a self-righteous hypocritical trouble maker and reject me if I caused them problems (this was satan lying to me, because I worked with some great people). There after whenever I was presented with an objectionable ad I always struggled with whether Jesus would protect my job or not if I refused to do the ad. It was never told to anyone I worked with that I didn’t have to do these ads and I feared others’ resentment for having to do them for me. There are too many other examples of my failure in trusting God and too embarrassing as well.

It can be hard, very hard, to decide to obey God. But when I obey Him, He always makes it worth it. And when I don’t, I always eventually regret it, wishing I had obeyed Him.

A sign from Heaven

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day demanded He give them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove He was the Messiah:

Matthew 12 NKJV
³⁸Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered, saying, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”
³⁹But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here. ⁴²The queen of the South will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and indeed a greater than Solomon is here.

The spectacle of miracles was not as important to Jesus as changed lives through the demonstration of God’s loving character. Soul healing through the loving sign of physical healing was the goal of Jesus’ miracles for those who believed in God’s love. Irrefutable proof of His divinity thrilled those who loved God and confounded those who did not. His works of love proclaimed Him Messiah, Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh. Jesus said that those confounded would not be guilty if He had not come and done what no one else has ever done.

John 15 NKJV
²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³He who hates Me hates My Father also. ²⁴If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. ²⁵But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’

Jesus told His followers that the works that He did they would do, and even greater:

John 14 NKJV
¹²“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

John 15 NKJV
²⁶“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. ²⁷And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.

Control the wind and the waves? Change water into wine? Multiply bread and fish and feed thousands from one person’s small lunch? Grow back missing limbs? Heal the sick? Raise the dead? Greater than these? I might think that impressing the masses with these spectacular miracles is Jesus goal. But Jesus’ ultimate purpose for doing miracles was to give Life to the spiritually dead and introduce them to a relationship with His Father who loved them. This He could greater accomplish by loving multitudes of people through multitudes of His followers who love by the power of His Spirit living within them. That is greater than any spectacle.

So what is the final proof that Jesus is God? Ask one of His followers what He has done for them personally.

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