Provision part 2
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. That, to me, kind of says it all about provision. We have someone looking out for us and taking care of us. Someone who loves us and was willing to--and, in fact, did--lay His life down for us. Why? Because He wanted us to have His life. To experience it as HE lives His own life in us, and through us, and as us. Point being: We don't have to try to be someone we're not in order to get something we think we haven't got. We can rest. He makes us lay down in green pastures. We can be safe and secure in His loving arms. We can enjoy the fruit of HIS labor instead of trying to earn our bread by the sweat of our brows. God has us covered. That's the short and sweet version of what I'm trying to say. But let's make this practical. Let's see where the rubber meets the road. Because God (in large part) works through people. So look at Philippians 2:4, "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." And in the NLT, "Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too." Here's what I really like about that: If I'm looking out for you, and you're looking out for me... neither one of us has to worry about ourselves. We can be selfless instead of selfish. We can look past ourselves. Remember yesterday when we talked about praying? And how God knows what we need before we even ask it? The prayer isn't about begging for God to give us stuff. It's about expressing gratitude for what He has already given us. The attitude of gratitude. Knowing and believing that we are completely covered. Knowing and believing that I have no lack because my God has no lack. Knowing and believing that my God will provide all of YOUR need. That's such a key turn in that phrase to me. Paul wasn't even worried about himself. He was making sure the people he was writing to knew that THEY were covered. He KNEW he was covered. And he knew that his God had THEM covered too. Give it to God. Problem solved. He provides for us. Because He IS our provision. Everything we need... we find it in Him. Because what we need... is love. And God is love. In order to provide for us, He gave us His only begotten Son. Because He knew that was what we needed. And once we know and believe that we have Jesus... everything else just lines up from there. Once we know that we are planted on the Rock of God's love (the Rock that IS God's love... again, God is love) we cannot be shaken. And here's the cool part (I haven't even gotten into God giving us our desires yet, but here's the cool part) when you know that you cannot be shaken, that's when you can help others stand firm and tall. You can live out of your abundance. You can give what you've got, knowing that it is what others need. You can live and love, knowing that those two things are really the same thing. To live is to love and to love is to live. We have what we need. That's my point. Because we have Jesus. Because we have love!