Are August 20, 2007
Posted by Han in : Relationship with God , trackbackAs believers, not a single day can we live by without trusting God. We put our trust on Him for all that we have and all that we need and as promised in Phillippians 4:21, He will supply every need of ours according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.
Even though God had promised that our needs would be taken care of, we must admit that until today, a lot of our prayers to God are still on asking for the provision of our daily needs. Nonetheless, we must admit to ourselves that our needs today had grown by leaps and bounds as compared with the needs of those about a decade ago. The basic needs previously was rather simple and covers purely on food, clothing and shelter.
Today, our list of needs had evolved to include cars, computers, hand phones and the list could go on depending on individuals. If we could recall our last prayer, would it be to God to provide us for a nice cool car because our old car had just broken down? What about to buy a new computer that is much faster than the present old unit which is slow and hangs when surfing the net. Well, we do know that the Bible did teach us to ask from God and God had always wanted to bless us all abundantly.
Hence, it is not surprising that many of us may have said prayers such as the followings during our student days - “God, I had been so diligent in going to Church, can you help me in my exams? Question is in all our prayers are we TRUSTING God or USING God for our needs in our life?
Let us take a look at what the Bible has to say about our NEEDS.
In Matthew chapter 4 we learn that Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The devil had tempted Him to command the stones to become loaves of bread if He is the Son of God. Jesus replied, “Man shall not leave by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”
Often, we trust God because God will provide for our needs but from the verses mentioned, God is saying that we have to trust Him beyond our needs. Trusting Him meant HONORING, FOLLOWING and OBEYING Him. As such, in our daily life, remember – do not live by money alone!, do not live by alcohol alone!, do not live by work alone! and etc.
The devil then took Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple in verse 5 and said to Him, “ If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone” Jesus said, “ You shall not put the Lord your God to test”. Do not PRESUME God’s goodness and grace.
For many of us in our daily lives, we tend to create all sorts of circumstances and subsequently cry out to God for help. For example, a believer wanting to marry a non-believer may say God will bless them later and assumes that the partner (unbeliever) will eventually believe in God, as God will help. Unfortunately in many cases it may never happen and the marriage life ultimately fail.
From the mentioned verses, notice that Jesus did not give in to the devil when tempted and never put God to test even though He knew that there is nothing in the world that God could not do. The Book of Exodus records how Moses led the Israelites out from Egypt, where they were held as slaves for 430 years. Even after leading the Israelites across the Red Sea, the Israelites continued to grumble and taunt Moses when there was no food or water. Though God had provided each time, Moses had warned the people NOT to TEST God as in Deuteronomy 6:16 “ You shall not put the Lord your God to the test, as you tested him at Massah”
All in all, we need to ask ourselves if we are living in accordance to the plan of God in our life or are we planning for God in our life? God will NOT LISTEN to people who likes to PRESUME God! Never attempt to create circumstances, which are not of God’s will or favor and expect God to help eventually just because we trust Him. To know if we are truly trusting God in our lives, ask ourselves and find out where we belong to in these 2 categories of people:-
1. Often when prayer go unanswered, this Group of people will be utterly disappointed and quick to murmur or grumble against God.
2. The other, even though prayer went unanswered, they will still continue to TRUST God and believe in God for better things to come.
For all that we ask in prayer, we need to draw the line and know if what we ask for comes from deep within our self or from God. If they were from God, trusting Him would mean continuing our walk with Him even when our prayer goes unanswered. Instead of getting disappointed or frustrated with the unanswered prayer, on the contrary our relationship with God gets stronger and stronger as we understand and see more of His plan in our life that is believing that through Him, things can only get better in time to come.
If ever God had not answered any of our prayers, let us not be quick to disappoint, murmur or grumble against God. To see breakthrough in our prayers, we need to be USED by God instead of us using God. As the word says in Isaiah 64:8, Lord you are the potter, we are the clay and we are all the work of your hand. The only way to be used by God is to TRUST in His Hands.
Article by: Reuson Seet
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