“The
story of every great Christian achievement is the history of answered prayer.” E.M. Bounds
My wife, Jane,
and I don’t cry together often yet we did this past Monday…but it was a really good
cry. We were just both overwhelmed with God’s goodness and His provision that
it brought tears to our eyes. It literally took our breath away.
For us, our commitment to our Building
Changed Lives Together Campaign begins in January. While all along
we’ve been giving toward our new building, this past Sunday, we’d talked about
December and what we were going to give. We decided that we’d give $250.00 for
the new building, plus our regular giving. In December, with Christmas around
the corner, without long range planning for us and as it was not in the budget
– that was a chunk of money for us.
Monday, I came home after lunch and Jane was
in the midst of emailing me. With tears in her eyes, she says, “You’re not
going to believe what happened!” Jane has a used book business that we run out
of our home and on Monday morning she sold a book for $250.00. And we didn’t
even buy the book. It was given to us by a friend who often has extra books
from their business that they need to discard and had given it to us.
If you’re familiar with Amazon and that
Amazon ranks their books by popularity in sales, this was a book that had very
little chance of ever selling. It was ranked at 2.3 million. Many used book
dealers won’t even buy books for resale that have a ranking of less than a
million because they want to move books and don’t want a lot of books in their
stock. Add to that, most of the books that Jane sells average between $8 to $10
a book.
When we committed to that extra $250 over our
regular giving and over our commitment, we had no idea where the money was
going to come from. But our Heavenly Father did! God already had a lady
somewhere in Missouri ready to order a book from a used book dealer in
Rochester, Wisconsin because He knew that we needed $250 that we didn’t really
have to give away for His glory!
Talk about seeing your sermon come to life.
Last weekend we worked through Philippians 4:10-20 and we specifically talked
about God’s promise in verse 19, “And my
God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus.”
Jane and I got so excited that we decided to
start a memory book of how God provides and answers our prayers during this
Capital Campaign. Since we made our commitment, we’ve already seen God begin to provide
in phenomenal ways…ways that we never even imagined.
Over the course of my life, I’ve seen God
provide for me over and over again. Here’s my problem – I have a very short
memory. Unfortunately, I tend to make the current problems I’m facing so big
that I can completely forget God’s big blessings and provision in the past. The
same Heavenly Father who took care of me yesterday is going to take care of me
today. Too often I forget what He’s already done for me.
Then, we had this other great idea. If a “How
God provided memory book” would be good for us, it might help everyone in our
church family. Many of you are probably like me. God has taken care of you and
provided for you so many times, but you just tend to forget, particularly
during tough times.
So this morning, we have some “How God provided memory notebooks”
available for anyone who wants one. Please feel free to pick up one when you
leave this morning. I hope that you’ll use this over the course of the next
three years…maybe longer. It will help all of us remember that the God we’re
bringing our problem to today is the same God Who provided for us yesterday.
Talk about a way of encouraging and affirming our faith.
This is all supremely biblical. Later today we’re
having a baptismal service. God designed baptism to be a physical reminder of
what’s already taken place spiritually. As one dies to sin and was dead
spiritually prior to coming to Christ in salvation and being regenerated, so
going down into the water is a symbol of that dead condition. Yet, coming back
up out of the water is a beautiful symbol of the resurrection and the new life
that every believer has in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:5-6 says, “even when we were dead in our trespasses,
made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us
up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
It’s why God had the Children of Israel keep
a jar of manna in the Ark of the Covenant. He didn’t want them to forget how
He’d providentially fed them for forty years in the wilderness. He had them
bring twelve huge rocks from out of the Jordan River
when they crossed over on dry ground during the flood season to remind them of
how God had miraculously intervened for them and brought them into the Promised
Land.
Sadly, too often, in the Church, we don’t
keep answered prayer or God’s provision diaries. We don’t have many symbols of
how God has provided for us in the past. We also don’t share enough with each
other of God intervening or answering our prayers. We’re working on that at
Grace and will continue to take steps to grow in this area in our church.
God has already used our Building Changed Lives Together
Campaign to bring about spiritual growth in my life and in our family’s
life. We want to keep a record of it so that we can look back and remember what
God has done. I hope you’ll do the same. And if you have children at home, what
a wonderful way to build a foundation of faith in their hearts as they see the
written account of how our Heavenly Father provided for your family during this
time of challenge and commitment for your family and our church family.
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