Beloved: grace and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Saviour. Welcome to another week of the month of October 2023. My prayer is that God will meet all your needs in the week and throughout the remaining part of this year according to His generosity, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
According to Scriptures, we can ask God for anything we need and expect Him to answer us, as long as we ask according to His will (1John 5:14). But then, even though we are praying according to His will, we should also learn not to base our expectations of His answers on how hard we are praying or on how much we are asking Him to do for us. Instead, we should always base our expectation of His answers to our prayers on His generosity.
Look at how Paul prays for the Philippian brethren along these lines: “And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:19NIV) Think about that. Paul is not asking God to meet the needs of these brethren according to what they need or want. Also, he is not asking Him to meet their needs according to their labour or what they give to others. Rather, he is asking Him to meet their needs according to His wealth in Christ Jesus.
Now, of course, God can meet people’s needs according to their needs. But if He meets only their needs, will they be able to support others in any serious way? Not likely! Also, God can meet people’s needs according to their labour. But will what He give them through their labour be sufficient to take care of them and those they are responsible for? Not likely!
Then if God has to give to us according to the degree of our generosity, how many of us will receive anything tangible from Him? There are some of us that have remained ever stingy to God, to His servants and to the people around us, even though we have heard all kinds of sermons on the need for us to be generous in order for certain blessings of God in our lives to freely flow. And if God has to consider this in supplying our needs, will what we will be receiving from Him be enough to make us happy? I don’t think so.
There are many today that are unhappy with God and with what they are receiving from Him because they believe they deserve more than He is giving to them. These ones are wondering why those who are not as intelligent as they are, who do not work as hard as they work, who do not pray as hard as they do and who are probably as not as generous as they are could be receiving more from God than them. They think it to be unfair. And this is affecting their devotion to Him.
But is God really being unfair to them? No! If you want God to provide for you according to your labour, prayerfulness and generosity, He will do so, unless He just decides to show you mercy. And if He does so, you yourself will see that your works can never be enough to enjoy His best. This is one of the things the Lord Jesus teaches us through the parable of a farmer that went out one day to hire workers to work in his vineyard. (Cf. Matt 20:1-15)
Now, as the story goes, the first set of people this man hired that day told him what they would want him to pay them for a day’s job. And he agreed. But after they had started working, the man realised that they were not enough to finish the job for the day. So, he kept on going out till the evening of that same day to bring in more people to work for him. However, he made no agreement with those he brought in later concerning what he would pay them. He only told them that he was going to pay them whatever was fair.
Well, when it was time for this man to pay everyone who worked for him that day, he told his foreman to pay all of them the same amount, beginning with those who were hired last and on to the first. This, of course, led those who were hired first, who had thought that they would be paid more, to protest that the man was being unfair. But he told them that he was not unfair to them at all and that he paid them based on what they agreed to collect from him, while he paid others based on his generosity.
What is the point? It is that while it is important for us to be devoted to serving God, praying to Him, giving for His work and to others and also working diligently, we should never seek to receive from Him based on what we are doing or have done. Instead, we should always seek to receive from Him based on His generosity. That is because it is only that which He supplies us based on His generosity that will satisfy us and make us truly happy. And I pray that we will be strengthened to learn this truth fast and begin to daily apply it in our lives, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Have a great week.
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