He has never failed! Every bill
has been paid, every need met, every meal provided! Now
here is the Message of Blessing we have personally experienced
and share with you our dear family and friends. The
God Whom we all serve today is indeed a God of intimate
relationship, just like He was some 2000 years ago with His
disciples. His promises can be trusted because they are based
on His glorious character. He comes near to us, hears us when we call,
and speaks to us with loving direction by His Holy Spirit. Learning
this in deeper ways has made every anxious financial moment worth
enduring! We are learning that God’s pathway into this intimate relationship
is the pathway of faith. Faith, very simply put, is — Believing
what God says ~ Based upon Who God is ~ Obeying what God desires.
All three elements are a vital part of true biblical faith. I
fear that I have been guilty at times of believing that the first
two components qualify as faith. Rather, I realize now that this
is not faith, but only “head knowledge”. True biblical faith requires
action consistent with what we say that we believe.
At
a very low point in my efforts to trust God for our
daily needs, the Holy Spirit opened up a beautiful
demonstration of faith to me in the life of David, as
found in Psalm 54. This Psalm was written while King
Saul was pursuing David, seeking to take his life (you can
read the story in I Samuel 23.15-29). David cries out to God
in the first three verses, stating that violent men are seeking
his life! In verses four and five, he reminds himself Who God
is and what His promises are to David (remember that David had already
been anointed by Samuel to be Israel’s next king). He remembers
that God is his helper, his sustainer, and his defender. Now, in
verses six and seven, believing what God had said, based upon Who
God is, he obeyed what God desired by declaring that God “had delivered”
him from all trouble. He was confident in God’s deliverance even
before it came! What a demonstration of true, biblical faith! We
do not need to wait and see the results to believe, but rather we
can believe and act with confidence because God’s truths and promises
are based upon His character. From this point on I began thanking
God for His faithful provisions even before they came.
A Message of Gratitude
As God has miraculously
met every need, He has done it through the gracious
generosity of you, our dear family and friends.
We could never express enough how deeply touched we have
been by your love and kindness. Brenda and I, along with
our children, want to express deep hearts of gratefulness
for the generous support we have received from you. It truly
humbles us to be recipients of the financial support you have
all given, and my desire is to be a faithful steward of your
investment. With all of our hearts, we say Thank You! Your love
to us means more than we could ever explain. |