Needed to Praise the Lord 💕 God protects, provides and cares for us

Philippians 4: 19-20, And my God will liberally supply your every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. (20) To our God and Father be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

This verse is telling us (the born-again believer in Christ) that…

When we put our faith in Christ, God commissions Himself to protect, provide, and care for us. God always provides for his children, though often it is not in the way we expect or hope.

The difficulty for us, can often be to see His provision and care, particularly when it is different than we expect.

Isaiah 55:9 tells us that God is God, and His ways are higher than our ways.  

We got to see God’s protective hand at work today by keeping our equipment safe from harm.

However, God is always at work in our life, but we are more often than mot unaware of them.

So, I thought I would bring a little encouragement and talk about how God provides and cares for each of us. 

First, I want to point out that God May Provide Differently Than We Expect

I’m sure you remember that when the Israelite's escaped captivity in Egypt, they still had to face the challenges of the desert.

And the biggest challenges for such a large group of was enough food to eat. Over and over again God provided supernaturally for his people.

Yet even with God’s provision, the Israelite's still complained and grumbled in the desert.

They wanted food like they had eaten while they were slaves in Egypt. They were looking back at what they had and failed look forward to what God wanted to do.

God was literally providing bread from heaven — enough for each day — but they wanted his provision a different way. They wanted it their own way.

We need to ask the Lord to strengthen our faith and to stop wanting our own way and complaining about the way our lives may be at the moment… we need to rejoice in what He has done for you… and look forward to what He desires to do.

And the second is, God Provides Finally in Eternity

Hebrews chapter 11 gives us two different perspectives on God’s provision and care for us. It tells how some, by faith, came through this life victorious, while others lost their lives. Yet, both are commended for their mighty faith.

We need to understand that God does not always provide and care for us in ways we might expect in this life. The Bible does not promise this. Peter, James, John, and Paul gave their very lives for the gospel. They viewed the gospel as a treasure not to be lost at any cost. They suffered gladly because they had something in the gospel that had far more worth.

This life is fleeting, it is fragile. James 4:14 says that life is but a vapor.

The next life, the age to come, is where all God’s provision and care for us will ultimately make sense and come together as a whole.

We may not receive healing in this life, but we will receive perfect healing in eternity.

We may not see answers to our greatest prayers in this life, but we will receive fully in eternity.

Some days God’s provision and care may seem distant, but it will be ever-present in eternity. We long for our world to stop raging and be at peace, but ultimate peace will only come in eternity.

Our hearts ache under the pressures of this life, but it is only because we were made for another world.

We are sojourners and aliens on this earth.

Just as 1 Peter 2:9 tells us, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”