Does God really promise to supply our needs?

What we think is what God should supply us with is the Bare minimum cuz I just expected God to help me get a pass-70% in my math class but Praise to GOD for faithfully far exceeding my limitations in a class i didnt understand at first or like- THX GOD- Your Disiple Ben-

 

I've heard story after story (and I believe almost all of them) of how God met a need just in the nick of time, or just exactly to the penny an amount someone had been praying for. However, there are other stories about how that need wasn't "met" or no money was forthcoming. This does not deter me. The Bible says God will supply all my need and therefore, whatever happens will go along with that. I was in Bible college once and needed money for the rent and I prayed for God to supply my need. It did not happen and the due date for the rent came and went and the landlord was treated to a poor witness of a Christian who did not pay his debts. I eventually got the money and paid the rent but it was too late to demonstrate to the landlord that God would meet all my needs. What I learned from this was not that the Bible was wrong but that I had been wrong in my view of this verse. I think perhaps I should have learned the lesson that God is not going to meet the "needs" of a lazy student who had not gotten off his sorry behind and tried to find a job. It's like the expression, "Pray for rain but, keep on plowing!"

 

Were you "testing God" or were you just asking for a real help with a need?

You said you got the rent eventually - did you give God credit for that?

 

To the best of my knowledge (it was over 30 years ago) I was not testing God. I was asking for a need but it was a need I shouldn't have needed if I had been doing what I was capable of doing to make the help from God unnecessary.

I thanked Him for it but there was this nagging thought in my brain that somehow God had failed me by getting it to me too late to show the landlord that God would supply my need. It was difficult for me to admit that the whole situation was my fault for needlessly depending on God for a miracle when with a little effort I could have met the need myself.

 

The obvious conclusion drawn here is that you think the scripture is false where it says "And my God will supply all your needs..."

 

No, the obvious conclusion is that I think what I stated I think, which is that this is a generalization and not an absolute.

It would be ridiculous to say that God always supplies all of every Christian's needs. All you have to do is look at the millions of Christians who have died from starvation, dehydration, and exposure. Obviously their needs were not met.

This is interpreting "needs" to be life-sustaining physical needs, which seems to be the context of the verse. If you expand it to be a need to fulfill a role in the grander scheme of things, God may decide we need to die and then withhold the fulfillment of our physical needs so that we do. If this is the proper interpretation, you yourself asked, "how is this not a completely useless verse of scripture?"

 

There are no 2-ways about it-- the passage says "My God will supply all your needs..."

"Will" does not mean "might," and "all" does not mean "some" or "most."

That only leaves the possibility that we do not actually have needs, since God does not always supply food, shelter, et al; which gives the passage no practical meaning.

 

I don't believe God put any 'useless' verses, OR verses with no 'practical meaning', in the Bible.

Just because we don't fully understand a verse does not mean that God doesn't understand it and He means just what He says...

 

God supplies all our needs. That does not preclude death. God supplied all of Jesus' needs and He still died. God supplied all of Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Ezekiel, etc.'s needs and they still died. God supplying all of our needs does not negate the curse. It was never intended to be taken that way. God gives us each a path, a journey, and responsibilities. He will supply all of our needs to meet those criterion. He will supply all of our needs until it is time for us to go home and then we have no more needs. Yes, Christians suffer. Sometimes that suffering is for our growth, sometimes it is for our testimony, and sometimes it is for others benefit. Whatever the reason for the unpleasantness, it is still something we NEED to go through.

 

Alcott,

I totally disagree with you.

There are many, many factors involved.

What is a need? Did the person with the need really turn to God in faith for that need? Did they listen to the voice of God during their need? Did they wait on the Lord to supply that need before they started cursing Him?

Regarding what we really need:
Look at Job. God took His protection from Job, and Satan destroyed Job's family, Job's livelihood, Job's health. His friends left him. These are things we usually think someone needs. Job stuck with God, and trusted God, and even when things got rough God saw Job through it and rewarded him with more than what he had originally lost.

Look at Joseph. His brother's wanted to kill Him, threw him in a well to die, then hauled him up to sell him as a slave. Joseph stayed with God through all of that, and God stayed with Joseph. In the end, Joseph was the second most powerful man in the world - answering only to God and Pharoah.

Look at all of Israel as God lead them out of Egypt. They needed food, He gave them mana. They needed fresh water, God sent them the morning dew and the knowledge of how to collect enough of it to drink.

There is an old joke with a lot of truth in it that kind of revolves around this.

A man of faith built his house right above the normal flood plane. When the rains came, the water rose and an evacuation warning went out. The old man refused to go. He said, "God will take care of me."

The water rose, covering the roads beyond the capacity of most cars or trucks there was a knock on the man's door. It was a neighbor saying, "Get in my truck. It has four wheel drive, and its large enough that it can get us to safety before the water gets any higher." The old man said, "No thank you, God will take care of me." And he shut the door.

The water rose and the man was forced to the second floor of his home. As he sat out on his balcony, watching the water swirl beneath him, a man in a row boat came by and said, "Get in! I'll take you to safety!" The old man said, "No, god will take care of me."

The water kept rising, and the man was forced to climb onto his roof to avoid drowning. As he was up there singing hymns a helicopter came by. A ladder was lowered and a voice called out, "Grab the ladder! We'll pull you to safety!" The old man waved the helicopter away. "I'm fine! God will take care of me!"

Well, the man drowned.

And when he reached heaven he asked to see God. As he approached God he said, "Lord, I don't understand! I had faith! I loved you! I prayed! Why didn't you help me? Why did you ignore my need?!"

And God answered, "What are you talking about? I warned you that the flood was coming and you did nothing. So I sent you a truck, a boat and a helicopter. Why are you blaming me?"

 

By the way:

Until Christ comes again - I believe death ~is~ a need.

I believe that for a Christian - death is a phase of eternal life. A baby in the womb has everything it needs. It has food from the mother pumped right to it. It has shelter within the mother's womb. It can move. It can suckle. It can play.

Then the contractions begin, and those things the baby needed inside that womb are no longer needed and no longer supplied. NOW it needs air, and comforting arms, and the milk of its mother.

The baby doesn't know what is on the other side of the birth canal though. Suddenly its "shelter" is roiling and muscles are pushing it from its "home." The chord its played with and fed on for 9 months is doing a lousy job of supplying food at the last minute.

Everything changes, but the baby has no choice. That's good. If the baby COULD stay inside the mother, the mother would suffer and the baby would suffer. The baby would never learn to walk, or run or read or speak if it didn't go through that frightening pain that is birth.

BIRTH - to a baby - is very much like a form of death.

And death - to a Christian - is birth.

Its leaving the decaying world around it to a better place where we can reach a potential that this world never lets us reach.

That doesn't mean we should try to choose the time of death. Just as a baby that is born too early will not survive, we must wait until God deems us ready to be born into that part of our eternal life, but don't hate death. Don't fear death. Death is transition, not ending.

 

I think that we're expanding these verses beyond their original meaning.

Matt. 6:19-34

Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, do not try to serve God and money. Do not worry about food and clothing because worry is useless and because God loves you. Instead of spending time worrying about these things, serve God and he will provide for you.

Phil. 4:10-19

Thank you for giving me financial support. I'm not telling you this so that you will send more, because even if you had not God would have provided. Yet I want you to know that your habit of generosity pleases God. Even though you are sending me money that you could be spending on yourselves, I know God will provide for your needs.

It looks to me like these verses are strictly speaking about physical needs that can be met by the expenditure of money. I don't really see a reason to expand the meaning of these verses to include spiritual needs when there are already a great number of verses that address that.

As I said before, I think that this is a generalization and not an absolute. If you read Proverbs, there are a good many statements that are given as if they were absolutes:

The LORD does not let the righteous go hungry
but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.

The fear of the LORD adds length to life,
but the years of the wicked are cut short.

A man is praised according to his wisdom,
but men with warped minds are despised.

Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.

Are these always true? We have all seen the righteous go hungry, we've seen good people die young, we've seen wise men despised, and we've all seen children who were raised by godly parents yet rejected God.

So I think from these passages we are told, "God will generally meet your needs," and then from other passages we gather, "but when God doesn't meet your needs, there is a reason for it."

 

Petrel,

I sort of agree with you and sort of disagree with you.

I do agree there is a reason for when God tells you no to your prayer. I disagree with the view that this is failure to meet a need.

I also disagree with the view the scritpures are "general needs". He says that the very hairs on our heads are numbered. I gather from that He is into details.

I still believe it comes down to God knowing, in the long run, what is best, vs us knowing, ever, what we really need.

As I said earlier, children often swear they need things that their parents know they shouldn't even have. We have a child's view of what we need. God has a parental view of what we need.

 

Jeremiah 29: 10 For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place. 11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13 And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.

2 Corinthians 12:7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Jesus, when He prayed, said ". . . nevertheless not as I will, but as You will."

 

Alright, we can starve, be butchered and bleeding, be strung up by our thumbs, have 17 kinds of cancer at once, et al, et al,... but we always have what we need because all we have is automatically all we need till it's all over and our eyes shall close in death [that's not literal, I'm just aping a certain song; guess which one ].

I guess God is off the hook (as if he were ever on it) however one approaches this verse of scripture.

 

Hmmm, who says we don't need to die? Death is a part of life and if we don't die(or be raptured first) then we don't see eternal life.

I don't know about you, but when it's my time to go, I'm heading out ready! I have a Saviour I want to see face to face!

 

I understand what you mean. That is why I used to think this explanation was a copout. If I got what I needed then God met my need and if I didn't then it was something I didn't need. Bases covered. I now believe it is a matter of faith. The only way I can fail to have a need met is if God was mistaken. I, therefore, understand need as what God supplies rather than what I think.

 

If we walk humbly with our God, then we will be in surrender to His will for us and our NEEDS will be true needs and not 'wants'.

Micah 6:6 With what shall I come before the LORD, And bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, With calves a year old? 7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, Ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? 8 He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?

Micah 7:7 Therefore I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; My God will hear me. 8 Do not rejoice over me, my enemy; hen I fall, I will arise; When I sit in darkness, The LORD will be a light to me. 9 I will bear the indignation of the LORD, Because I have sinned against Him, Until He pleads my case And executes justice for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I will see His righteousness.

Micah 7:18 Who is a God like You, Pardoning iniquity And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, Because He delights in mercy. 19 He will again have compassion on us, And will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our[a] sins Into the depths of the sea.

 

You can rip that verse right out of your Bible now. It isn't true. I know. Petrel's seen it. He said so hisself.

 

Aaron,

You sound very angry with God right now. Can we help you with something happening that has caused you to feel you need to "rip verses out of the bible?"

Be careful about judging God, Aaron. You do not know the hearts of men, nor do you ever really know a situation. Are you certain the people you think are righteous ~are~? Are you certain that what you think they need is what they have asked God to provide?

Mother Theresa amazed me when she was alive. One of my favorite stories from her life was when someone gave her a car. They'd discussed how best to help her and decided she needed a beautiful limo so she would not have to walk as she carried out her ministry. She thanked them, and then sold the car and used the money to feed other people. What she thought was needed was not what they thought was needed.