Does God really promise to supply our needs?

All things for a reason.........

 

Sky, you crack me up!

I was being sacrastic with my last post.

 

Aaron,

I'm relieved that you weren't serious.
The problem with sarcasm on a forum is that it doesn't show up as sarcastic.

 

TS: When you've read enough of Aaron's posts, you will be able to tell when he's 'joshing'.

It was my verse he was ripping out, but I didn't reply because I knew he was making a veiled 'jab'.

He could have put a but then it wouldn't have been so funny.

 

Interestingly, that's the same reason I didn't bother replying.

I will now, though, because I Am Blessed 16 thought there was something in his jab, which I thought was off-base.

There are three possiblities.

1. God always meets all of the physical needs of his people by never allowing them to die of starvation, dehydration, or exposure. Disease and murder are exempted.

2. God usually meets the physical needs of his people by not allowing them to die of starvation, dehydration, or exposure. He usually protects us from disease and murder as well. Sometimes for reasons we don't know these things are allowed to happen to us.

3. God always meets all of the real needs of his people. We perceive food, water, and shelter as real needs. However, sometimes a person's true needs are best served by withholding these things. In these cases a person may die of starvation, dehydration, or exposure, but God cannot be said to have not met their need, because they really needed to die in that manner.

The majority of people on this thread have chosen option 3. I picked option 2. The difference between options 2 and 3 are semantic--the outcome is the same, but the word "need" is defined differently. Aaron seems to have chosen option 1, which is essentially different from both options 2 and 3.

I guess Aaron is occupied right now tearing Ecclesiastes, Job, the story of Lazarus and the rich man, and the healing of the man born blind (John 9) out of his Bible.

The healing of the man born blind is worth a second look. If you recall, he begged in the streets before he was healed. The disciples asked Jesus if he was blind because of his parents' sin or because of his own sin. Jesus said that neither his parents nor his own sinfulness or righteousness had anything to do with his blindness, but that it was so "the works of God might be displayed in him." I guess Aaron (according to Psalm 37:25) believes God can only show the works of God in the sons of sinners--perhaps showing the works of God in the sons of the righteous is just too mean?

God allows bad things to happen to good people. If we deny it we're getting dangerously close to the "health and wealth" gospel common now and taught by Job's comforters.

 

We are prone to ask, "Why", when bad things happen.

How many times have we asked, "Why", when GOOD things happen...

It rains on the just and the unjust.

 

I believe many times we get exactly what we 'asked for' when bad things happen in our lives. We make really bad decisions, before and after becoming Christians, and expect God to just make it all a bed of roses.

Even King David lost his child for his adultery with Bathsheba and he prayed prostrate for 7 days and nights begging for God to spare that child. He showed true remorse and yet God said 'no'.

 

Oh, how right you are!!!

I can't tell you how many Christians I know who are in financial debt, and got there though no one's fault but their own bad financil habits. And a few of them have had the nerve to blame it on Satan. Some of need to blame the one in the mirror, not the one in the pit.

BTW, I humbly admit, i, too, was once a financial weenie. But about 7 or so years ago, I started listening to the advice of financial gurus like Suze Orman, and today I'm financially stable. And I don't make much more than I did then.

 

This is an incredible thread. I read every post. One of the reasons I read every post was to make sure I was not repeating something.

There is something to be remembered, perhaps. I think Joni put it best in her book One Step Further. Roughly paraphrased, she talks about a jeweler with a diamond that far surpasses any of the other jewels he has. So he does not put it with the others, but by itself on a field of black and then shines a light on it to show it off to its best advantage.

Sometimes a Christian may find his or her life is a field of black. God's grace and love is the jewel of surpassing beauty and that very field of black will show it off to its full advantage. We, as Christians, are allowed to have horrible things happen to us the same as the rest of the world. How we react makes all the difference. What we NEED is God's grace in our lives. That will always be there in sufficient measure for the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Others will be watching. Will they see God's grace or will we be drawing their attention, instead to the field of black?

We tend to think of our needs as always physical. They aren't. Our physical lives are passing quickly. Our deepest need is God Himself, and this is NOT sidestepping the issue. Whatever is needed to establish and further bond our relationship with God Himself will be done for us by God. This is an eternal need.

Often we need to stay alive for this to happen. Then our physical needs will also always be met. But sometimes death and even the manner of death, as awful as it might be, are necessities to fulfill the eternal need.

What about the little children starving, whoever and wherever they might be? First of all, the children are His. They will be in heaven. Second of all, He is using them to jolt our consciences awake so that we will spend more of our resources caring for others. We can't save all the children or all the people. But we can help the people he has put in our path. Sometimes His way is to supply their needs through us. Sometimes we refuse....but the supply was there to begin with.

Some of this has been mentioned one way or another by other posts here. But what I wanted to mention was Joni's picture of the jewel as far as our own personal lives are concerned and our reactions to our own black times.

 

Amen Diane, and Amen Helen.

Your posts reminded me of something else that Dr. Ralph Smith used to say.

"A diamond is just a lump of coal that had the right kind of pressure applied to it so it could shine. Christians are just lumps of coal until God enters their life and turns them into diamonds."

 

Needs are far more than clothes, food, and shelter. these are merely the minimum for survival. God also meets our larger needs. He met Moses needs for 120 years and not 121. He saw to it that Moses was were he needed to be when he needed to be their. He had the possessions he needed to accomplish what he needed to do. God saw to it that he had the power and authority he needed to accomplish God's goals. God's goals ARE our needs. Our needs are to fulfill God's goals whether they are for us personally, our group, our church, our state, our country, or our world.