God’s Provision – Notes

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Recognizing God’s Ownership

Consistently recognizing God’s ownership can be a real challenge. Everything around us says that what you possess, you and you alone own. Acknowledging God’s ownership takes a total change of perception.

Important in Learning Contentment

Recognizing the Lord’s ownership is super important in learning contentment. When you believe you own a something, situations surrounding can totally affect your attitude. When things are good, you will be good; when they’re bad, not so much.

Shortly after Jim learned about God’s ownership, he purchased a car. He had driven the car only two days before someone rammed into it. Jim reacted with, “Lord, I don’t know why You want a dent in Your car, but now You’ve got one – and it’s big!” Jim was learning contentment!

Needs Versus Wants

The Lord also wants us to be content when our basic needs are met. “If we have food and clothing, we will be content” (1 Timothy 6:8, NIV). It’s important to understand the difference between a need and a want. Needs are the basic necessities of life — food, clothing, and shelter. Wants are anything beyond needs. The Lord may allow us to have our wants, which is great, but He has never promised to provide all of them.

Provision

The Lord promises to provide for our needs. “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things [food and clothing] will be given to you” (Matthew 6:33, NIV).

The same Lord who fed manna to the children of Israel during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, and who satisfied the hunger of 5,000 with only five loaves and two fish, has promised to meet all of our needs. This is the same Lord who told Elijah, “. . . I have commanded the ravens to provide food for you . . . the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat in the evening” (1 Kings 17:4-6).

God Is Both Predictable and Unpredictable

God is totally predictable in His faithfulness to provide for our needs. What we can’t really predict, is how He is going to provide for those needs. He uses different and often surprising ways to care for us. He might meet our current need through an increase in income or an unexpected gift. On the other hand, He might choose to provide an opportunity to stretch limited resources through money-saving purchases. Then again, He might meet our needs through some circumstance that we can’t even imagine right now. Regardless of how He chooses to provide for our needs, He is completely reliable.

Charles Allen tells a story that illustrates this principle. As World War II was drawing to a close, the Allied armies gathered up many orphans and placed them in camps where they were well fed. But despite excellent care, the orphans were afraid and slept poorly.

Finally, a doctor came up with a solution. When the children were put to bed, he gave each of them a piece of bread to hold. Any hungry children could get more to eat, but when they were finished, they would still have this piece of bread just to hold — not to eat. This practice produced incredible results. The children went to bed knowing that they would have food to eat the next day, and that simple guarantee helped them have a great night’s sleep.

Similarly, the Lord has given us His guarantee — our “piece of bread.” As we embrace His promises of provision, we can relax and be content. “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19, NIV).

A Division of Responsibilities

When it comes to the responsibility of handling money, the Bible shows us a pretty clear division. Simply put, God has a part, and we have a part. God has certain responsibilities and has delegated others to us. Most of the frustration we experience in handling money is because we don’t realize which responsibilities are ours and which are His.

God’s Part

This is the most important section of the entire study. Why? Because how we view God determines how we live. In the Bible, God calls Himself by multiple names. The name that best describes God’s Part in the area of money is LORD.

For example, after losing his ten children and all his wealth — in a single day! — Job continued to worship God, saying, “. . . The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD” (Job 1:21). Even in his grief, he understood God’s role as Lord of his possessions. Moses walked away from the treasures of Egypt, choosing instead to suffer with God’s people, because he accepted God’s role as Lord of all. There are several aspects to look at when it comes to God’s role.

Control

Besides being Creator and Owner, God is ultimately in control of every event. In Scripture we read:

• “. . . We adore you as being in control of everything” (1 Chronicles 29:11, TLB).
• “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and on earth” (Psalm 135:6).
• “. . . I, [King] Nebuchadnezzar, . . . praised the Most High; I honored and glorified him who lives forever.. . . He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’” (Daniel 4:34-35, NIV).

The Lord is also in control of difficult events. “. . . I am the Lord, and there is no one else, the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating disaster; I am the Lord who does all these” (Isaiah 45:6-7).

It’s important for us to realize that God uses even seemingly devastating situations for ultimate good in the lives of the godly. “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28). The Lord allows difficult circumstances to enter our lives for at least three reasons: (1) to develop our character, (2) to accomplish His intentions, and (3) to lovingly correct us when needed.

Getting to Know God

God, as He is seen in the Bible, differs big time from the way most people imagine Him. We tend to shrink Him down and fit Him into a mold with human abilities and limitations. We have a hard time recognizing God’s Part because we fail to understand the greatness of God who “. . . stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth” (Isaiah 51:13). How do we capture the true perspective of God? Primarily by learning what the Bible tells us about Him. The following is but a sample:

He Is the Lord of the Universe

Carefully review some of His names and attributes:

Omniscient Creator

Almighty Lord of lords

Eternal King of kings

Omnipresent Savior

The Lord’s power and ability are way beyond our comprehension. Astronomers estimate that there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the universe, each containing billions of stars. The distance from one end of a galaxy to the other is measured in millions of light years. Though our sun is a pretty small star, it could contain more than one million earths, and it has temperatures of 20 million degrees at its center. The size of the universe is mind boggling. “Raise your eyes on high and see who has created these stars . . . He calls them all by name; because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of them is missing” (Isaiah 40:26).

He Is Lord of the Nations

Take a look at the Lord’s role and position as it relates to nations and people. Isaiah 40:21-24 tells us, “Do you not know? Have you not heard? . . . It is He who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers . . . It is He who reduces rulers to nothing, who makes the judges of the earth meaningless. Scarcely have they been planted, scarcely have they been sown, scarcely has their stock taken root in the earth, but He merely blows on them, and they wither.”

He Is Lord of Each Individual

God is not some withdrawn, disinterested, reclusive “force.” On the contrary, He is intimately involved with each of us as individuals. Psalm 139:3-4 and Psalm 139:16 reveal, “You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. . .. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be” (NIV). The Lord is so involved in our lives that He reassures us, “Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (Matthew 10:30, NIV). Our heavenly Father is the One who knows us the best and loves us the most.

God hung the stars in space, fashioned the earth’s towering mountains and mighty oceans, and determined the destiny of nations. Jeremiah observed correctly: “. . . Nothing is too difficult for You” (Jeremiah 32:17). Yet this is the same God who knows when a sparrow falls to the ground. He is the Lord of the enormous universe and yet wants to be involved in the smallest details of your life.

Hold onto that thought for just a few seconds longer.

What in all the world, what in our life and current situations is “too difficult” for Him? N-O-T-H-I-N-G. The God who takes note of every hair  on every person throughout the whole world knows your needs, and even the deepest, unexpressed desires of your heart. Not just somewhat, but intimately.

Nothing in this study is more important than catching the vision of who God is and what His part is in our finances.