Jesus – Page 9 – I AM for You!

What do you want?

What a man wants is unfailing love, better to be poor than a liar. (Proverbs 19:22 NIV84)

God created us to want unconditional love, to want Him. It is better to be poor in spirit (know you need God) than to lie (and say in your heart you don’t need God). Satan appeals to our desire to meet our own needs, be our own “god”, to be our own source. Satan hates God, hates that He is love, and hates those who accept Him and His love… and return His love. He hates God because God’s goodness exposes satan’s evil selfish corruption. People worship (value) God because God demonstrates His humility and self-sacrificing care for them every day. God puts our needs ahead of His own. He is not only the Great King He is the Lowest (Head) Servant.

But Jesus called them to Himself and said to them, “You know that those who are considered rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant. And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45, NKJV).

Satan tells people to blame God for all the evil in the world. Satan tells people that God is uninterested in them, in their struggles, hurts, cares or dreams. Satan tells people that God is a nitpicking tyrant just waiting to pounce on them for doing the littlest thing wrong.

These are actually the qualities of satan and the opposite of the qualities of God.

God demonstrated who He really is when He walked on earth with us, in the person of Jesus Christ. Read the truth about God in the Bible. Read the Gospels, literally the “Good News”: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John at the beginning of the New Testament of the Bible. Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, and proclaimed the coming of His kingdom where His kind of loving service would rule; instead of this world’s current selfishness.

Do you want a God who is a loving leader; who values you and even your smallest dreams; who has served your greatest need already by paying the cost of your sin so you could spend forever with Him, so He could love you, and you could freely love Him back? If so, ask Jesus to come into your heart, to be your Servant and your Leader. Spend time talking to Him and listening to Him through prayer and reading the Bible. Ask Him to fill you with His Holy Spirit. Find a church that believes and preaches the Bible. And tell others what a great thing God has done 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.

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