Follow His Infallible Word

December 12

“God can give you more blessings than you need so you will always have plenty of everything—enough to give to every good work,” II Corinthians 9:8.

“My God will use His wonderful riches in Christ Jesus to give you everything you need,” Philippians 4:19.

“I tell you to believe that you have received the things you ask for in prayer, and God will give them to you,” Mark 11:24.

“We are not saying that we can do this work ourselves; it is God who makes us able to do all that we do,” II Corinthians 3:5.

We see a pattern of promises in the above verses that is repeated over and over throughout the Word. The frequent repetition of these promises is indicative to us of their significance to the Holy God who made them.

When we ask Him for spiritual treasure, when we desire that great spiritual gifts be entrusted to us, we are often reluctant to ask for them. We rationalize our inhibition by telling ourselves that if He wants us to have extraordinary gifts, they will be ours without asking; for He will simply impart them to us.

Jesus Himself stated in Mark 4:24 that we would have the things for which we ask in prayer, if we would but believe that they are ours. The two requisites to our receiving are that we ask and that we believe. Nowhere does He say that He will lavish His spiritual treasure upon those who do not care enough about it to beseech Him for it.

Another important point is that God wants to give us unsparingly of His finest spiritual gifts, and His reason for desiring to impart much of His eternal treasure upon His people is rooted in His desire that from our abundance we will “give to every good work,” II Corinthians 9:8.

The Lord predicates His gifts to us upon His desire that they flow from Jesus. It is His will that all we do in the behalf of His Kingdom’s purposes be recognized as flowing from the riches we have in Christ, not out of our own abundance (see Philippians 4:19.)

The reality is that nothing we do for the sake of the eternal Kingdom of the Living and True God can be achieved through temporal treasure. We can spend all we own without accomplishing anything of significance for the Kingdom of Christ, but we cannot contribute one jot or title of the Heavenly treasure He imparts to us without it accruing greatly to the spiritual welfare of our fellow sojourners through Earth’s dark valley.

With His own infallible Word to lead us, may we follow Him in giving to all mankind of the “unspeakable gift” (see II Corinthians 9:15) that has been entrusted to us.