Tag Archives: money god

Campus Crusade for Christ; Bill Bright – God Answers While We Are Praying

 

“So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the heathen? For they take pride in all these things and are deeply concerned about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and He will give them to you if you give Him first place in your life and live as He wants you to” (Matthew 6:31-33).

Whenever God impresses you with a need, you can always be assured that He will supply that need, often through others.

I remember the first time I asked God for a specific amount of money. We needed $485 for a particular ministry. While I was still on my knees in prayer, there came a knock at the door and the mailman handed me a registered letter containing a check for $500. Earlier, a young man from Zurich, Switzerland, had written his parents that he had received Christ through our ministry at UCLA, and he mentioned my name as one who had helped him. His parents and their daughter had then flown all the way from Zurich to California to learn how they also could become Christians. God honored their desire and after prayer and counsel they had gone home rejoicing in the assurance of their salvation. Now they were writing and sending this generous check to express their gratitude.

Later, we needed $10,000 and God impressed us to pray for that amount. An hour after we prayed, a man whom I did not know well called to say, “I am a new Christian, and I don’t know how God speaks to man, but you have been on my mind all day, so I thought it might be that God was trying to tell me something. I thought I would just call to see if you have a need.”

I told him we had just prayed for $10,000. He said, “That’s a lot of money, but I’ll call you back in an hour.”

An hour later he called to say he would send a check the next day for $10,000 as a loan without interest. He added, “If God continues to bless me and my business, I will give you the money.”

God greatly blessed his faith and obedience, and a year later the loan became a gift. God has graciously demonstrated His faithfulness on thousands of occasions and often in even greater ways.

For those who seek first God’s kingdom, He promises, “I will answer them before they even call Me. While they are still talking to Me abut their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers” (Isaiah 65:24). If our hearts and motives are pure and we seek always to please Him in what we do, we can never ask Him for too much. We can always be assured that our faithful God will answer us as we pray in accordance with His Word and Will.

Bible Reading: Matthew 6:24-33

TODAY’S ACTION POINT:  I will remember the faithfulness of God, that so long as my heart and my motives are pure and I pray according His Word and will, He will hear me and answer me even before I pray.

Entrusted with the Gospel – Charles Stanley

 

1 Thessalonians 2:1-12

Imagine standing by a pool, watching your children get ready to swim. The youngest asks you to hold something—a dirty plastic pail. The oldest makes a similar request, and then hands you an heirloom opal necklace that had been her grandmother’s. Most likely, you wouldn’t worry too much about protecting the toy, but you’d probably guard the jewelry with great care. The way we handle a possession reveals the value we attach to it.

We see this principle in Jesus’ parable about the master who, before going away, entrusted his workers with various sums of money. The two who invested theirs were later commended for wise use of the funds. Their efforts showed that they valued both the treasure and their master. A third worker, however, simply buried his portion in the ground, and all he “earned” was a harsh rebuke and loss of what little treasure he had.

Like these men, we are responsible for something of great worth—far greater, in fact, than money. God has placed in our keeping the most powerful and precious message in existence, the gospel of Jesus. And we are accountable for what we do with it. Our “investment” involves both how we apply its truth to our own life and whether we share it with others.

Do you feed on God’s Word daily, and are you obeying all that He says? He has commanded us to share His life-saving message with a hurting and needy world—and to make disciples in every part of the globe. Whether we listen and obey reveals how much we value the gospel.