GOD IS NO PAUPER

“I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the right­eous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.” (Psalm 37:25).

 

During my first year of Christianity, I felt inspired to write a small tract entitled God Is No Pauper.  It was a simple message on trusting the Lord for His provision of our daily needs and the needs of the ministry.  It exposed the notion of having to appeal to man to supply one's needs rather than trusting in the promises of God.  One section of that message is as follows:

 

"If the earth and all the fullness thereof is the Lord’s, then surely He is capable of carrying out His work without His saints having to beg and yahoo for funds to support that work.  Neither is it easy to imagine God’s holy apostles and prophets “passing the plate” to procure wages to support the work that God had given them to do.  Why, therefore, should it be any different for any of His other ministers?

                                               

"The apostle Paul worked with his hands as a tentmaker to support him­self.  He also commanded, in his se­cond letter to the Thessalonians (3:10), that if any would not work, neither should he eat.  It would be hard for an unbeliever to believe in our God if the only image he ever had of Him was one of a pauper, begging for crumbs to complete His work.  My God is no pauper!"

 

Little did my wife and I suspect that we would soon be given the opportunity to prove these bold words by our own experience. 

 

Shortly after publishing the tract, I was laid off from my job.  We had not been married for long, and I had just recently started my new job; so, we did not have much money saved to fall back on.  I was not going to receive an unemployment check for a couple of weeks, but we had enough groceries in the house to get by until I did.  One thing we did not have, however, was meat.  When we looked in the freezer, there was one package of cubed steak and nothing more.  We could have appealed to our family or friends for a little cash to get us by, but we realized that it was time to put the rubber to the road and either believe God's promises, or not.

 

That night, my wife prepared the cubed steaks for supper.  As our family gathered at the table, we began to pray.  I reminded the Lord of His promise to, “supply ALL your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Phil­ippians 4:19, 20). We thanked Him for His provision of the meal that was before us and affirmed our faith in not having to let anyone know of our need.  Finally, we acknowledged the belief that He knew our needs better than we did, and trusted Him to supply as He saw fit.  Never could we have imagined at that moment that God was already sending an answer to our prayer, and it was right then nearing our door.

 

We had no sooner finished with our prayer and begun to eat when there came a knock on our front door.  When I opened the door, there was a friend of ours standing on our front porch and holding a large grocery sack.  He was a new believer himself whom we had recently met.  As I invited him in, he walked to the table where we were eating and set the bag down and began to apologize, "I hope this doesn't offend you; but I was just at my father's house, and he butchered a cow and needed to clear out his freezer of all this older meat.  I can't possibly use all this and wondered if you could."  As he talked, he began pulling package after package of steaks and roasts from the bag and showed them to us.  All that we could do was praise and rejoice in the Lord's faithfulness!  God had been busy answering our prayer before we even prayed it!  He knew our needs even before we asked.  Needless to say, our experience only solidified the faith that we already had spoken.  After that day, God would supply random needs for us that no man knew about.  One time we found a sack of potatoes at our back door and to this day we don't know who left them, but potatoes was the one thing that we needed.  Another time we were out of toilet paper and, again, that's what was left for us.  Again and again God has supplied our needs when we were unable - and all without having to breathe a word to anyone but our heavenly Father.

 

In these tough economic times, it is important for us as Christians to know that our heavenly Father will care for His own.  Just as His eye is on the sparrow, so also is His eye on His beloved children.  If He can provide for each of His lowly creatures, how much more will He provide for us?  He will not only meet our daily needs, but will also provide the means for us to accomplish the work that He has called us to do on earth.  If He is behind the work, He will provide for it; and if He doesn't provide for it, He isn't behind it.