My sufficiency!
Verse for Today: Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Luke 22:35 – Then Jesus asked them, “When I sent you without purse,
bag or sandals, did you lack anything?” “Nothing,” they answered.
When God sends His children on their pilgrimage, all their needs are
looked after by Him. When they are sent without anything in their hands, there
is a guarantee that He will provide for them as each need arises. But at
difficult times, He gives them some provisions in advance to take with them. In
both these instances, it is God who meets the needs of His children. He wants
His children to trust Him in all circumstances with full confidence in His
capacity and willingness to look after them. It is no longer the strength of
our investments that ought to make us keep going, but the vast and immeasurable
resources in His heavenly treasury. So we must envisage our God as the sources
of all our resources. His storehouse opens each day to meet all our needs. He
sustained the Israelites for forty years as they traveled through the
wilderness. At each point of need, God’s treasure house was opened to give them
food, shelter, water, light, guidance and instructions till they reached the
Promised Land. They had no idea for how long their journey would last. If they
had known this ahead of time, they would have developed anxiety about sustenance.
But for each of their days and needs, there was heavenly provision. They
crossed seas and rivers and found victory over their enemies not because they
were experts at it, but because their God held their hands. He gave them newer provisions
each day to make their journey exciting. The same grace is extended to us today
as we are on a pilgrimage to walk after the Heavenly Prince with His assurance
that we will not lack any good thing.
Dear friend, do you wonder how you will meet your needs when your pocket
and bag are empty? Is there doubt as to how the next meal will come? But our
God has a great plan to meet all our needs on a daily basis. He is our security
for the future and not the systems of this world. He will provide for our every
need for food, clothing, shelter and mobility as we set out to follow Him. When
we face anxiety, God comes to ask us whether we lacked any good thing so far.
His question is definitely not about luxury, comfort or extravagance, but about
our daily needs as travelers. A traveler’s needs are never permanent, but
emerging. Apostle Paul was a traveler for Jesus and He met all of Paul’s needs
on a daily basis. But Paul’s focus was never on his needs, but on his mission
for Jesus. He never bothered about comfort or luxury and was always contented
with whatever God supplied on a daily basis. He took each of his experiences a leading
from Jesus and accepted it with praise in his heart. He did not treat his
experiences as ups and downs, but as hills and valleys of a normal pilgrimage.
For Paul, the journey was a walk with Jesus and he enjoyed its thrill every
moment. He was least bothered what he had in his pocket or from where the next
meal would come, but entrusted it to the Lord and kept walking. His Shepherd
was sufficient for all His needs and so he didn’t feel that he lacked anything.
The disciples found the same experience of sufficiency of God on all the days
of their lives whether it was a prison cell to sleep or an island in exile. Jesus
leads us every step of the way and provides for our every need to facilitate
our journey. It is a great challenge to leave the security of the world behind and
keep carrying the cross to walk after Jesus.
Psalms 23:1 - The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.
Thought for Today
The measure of our sufficiency
is what God gives us each day to meet all our needs and not what we accumulate
in this world.
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