Jehovah Jireh

"The LORD will provide" (Gen 22), that is the meaning of Jehovah Jireh. Scripture is full of instances that testify that this is true, the experience of many Christians likewise confirms this.

This past Lord's Day we touched on poverty, looking at what Jesus had to say to the poor in Christ in the Sermon on the Plain. For many poor brothers and sisters, and even wealthy brothers and sisters in their times of need, it is a great consolation that He gives us our daily bread, not only spiritually but also physically. He gives us what is needful (Prov 30:8b). 

It is true that in God's providence there are times when He wills our time is ended and so he doesn't "protect us," or even when the poor in Christ might starve to death, all the while He keeps our spirits; yet countless promises of God point to the fact that the norm is that He provides for us in our times of want, often in His grace when we don't directly deserve it, but especially when we have faith and wait on Him as provider.

Psalm 34 is a wonderful chapter of the Bible. A number of verses within it touch on this theme. Consider just two:

• v.6- The poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
  
• v. 9b- Those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
  

Often the LORD is not speedy to answer our prayers because He delights to answer the prayer of faith, a faith that endures to the end. On numerous occasions throughout my life the LORD has provided a gift that was the exact amount that was needed to meet a specific need, to the penny. Once I was in serious want, not knowing how to pay a bill and the LORD provided wonderfully, but I had to wait until the very day the bill was due.

Sometimes the provision we need will be of an immaterial kind, sometimes it will be a real physical need, either way, fear the LORD you His saints, for those who fear Him have no lack! He is Jehovah Jireh, our God who provides.

The Lord's Sweetest Blessings,
Pastor Chris