✤DAY 4✤
"The Promise is God's"
Psalm 105:7-8 (NCV)
He is the LORD our God. His laws are for all the world. He will
keep his agreement forever; he will keep his promises always.
II Corinthians 9:10
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will
also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the
harvest of your righteousness.
A week before their 2011 Global Mission Celebration and the
closing out of their 2010 Faith Promise collection, the Missions
Pastor of a church in Clearwater, Florida received a phone call
from one of their congregation. The caller said she would be
bringing a check to church on Sunday for $50,000 for missions.
She said that last year (March 2010) during the Faith Promise
service, as we were asked to pray to hear what God would have
us give to missions in the coming year, she heard the number
$50,000. That number seemed beyond ridiculous for them
because they were in the midst of total personal financial
devastation at that time. So when her husband asked her what
she had sensed God saying for their Faith Promise, she hedged a
bit and told him that she knew it was ridiculous for them at this
point, but that she had sensed $5,000. He looked at her and said
that was not ridiculous—that what he had heard was
ridiculous. He had heard $50,000! She confessed that she had
sensed the same amount. Since they both heard it, they went
ahead and wrote $50,000 on their Faith Promise Card. Then, just
one week before the 2010 giving year was over, they received in
the mail an unexpected settlement check from a car accident they
had had during the year. It was for an amount over
$50,000. They knew that the money belonged to God!
The cynic would say that all of that is pure coincidence. But
think about it for a minute. A couple undergoing financial stress
in their personal finances each bow their heads in a church
service and listen for God to speak. In the space of sixty seconds
or so, each one, independent of the other, hears the same
incredible amount of $50,000. Then within a year they come in
to an amount that surpasses the $50,000. It goes beyond the
bounds of reason to believe that, given this couples’
circumstances, they would be thinking in terms of numbers that
high. $500— maybe. $5,000— far-fetched but possibly. But
$50,000— no way!
But if in fact they actually heard God speak that amount then it
doesn’t seem implausible at all. And if God spoke it, the promise
was His and He would be responsible for its provision. That’s
exactly how a Faith Promise works. God impresses upon us an
amount to commit to, it is His promise to fulfill, when He
provides we serve as the conduit of His provision, and we share
in the blessing it brings to a hurting world.
Look at II Corinthians 9:10 once more, “Now he who supplies
seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and
increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your
righteousness.” God provides, people are blessed, and we get to
share in that blessing. What a God we serve!
Contemplation
Do I really believe that God will use me as a conduit of His
blessing in a bold way?
Prayer
Father, Give me a willing heart to make myself available to you
to be a channel of blessing to a world that is in need of Jesus and
His righteousness and peace.
Amen
Produced by: The Mission's Society
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