2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.” Today's episode talks about lots of examples of when God has shown up in abundance both in the scriptures and also in our lifetime. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Our God Is A God of Abundance
2 Corinthians 9:8 “And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.”
Have you ever prayed for something and then gotten way more than you prayed for? God is always doing this for His children. He loves to lavish His love and His grace on us. He showers us with mercy and forgiveness as well. God is amazing. I want to look at some examples of how our God is a God of abundance. When we are reading in Mark 6:30-44 we are reading about Jesus feeding the 5,000. This is where Jesus took 5 loaves and 2 fish and fed 5,000 people. This is a miracle, no one would have thought that could be done. I think if I had been feeding that many people I would have put limits on them while I was handing the food out. I would have told them to make sure to just take one piece of each until we make sure there is enough for everyone. Mark 6:42-43 says, "And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish.” Jesus didn’t limit people, He wasn’t worried. He knew His Father was a God of abundance. After all 5,000 people had eaten, they still had 12 baskets of bread and fish. Can you even imagine that? Can you picture how much they had left over after feeding 5,000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish?
Do you remember when God rained down quail for His children when they were in the dessert? In Numbers 11 it talks about how the Israelites were complaining because they had no meat to eat. They were saying it was better when they were in Egypt because at least they had meat and other fine things to eat. Now, remember, they were slaves in Egypt, but right now all they could think about was how they wanted meat to eat. So, God gave them a miracle and He rained down quail on them. God could have given them meat for one or two days, but instead He gave them meat for a whole month. He is a God of abundance. It says it Numbers 11:32, “So the people worked all that day and night and all the next day, gathering the quails; the least anyone gathered was ten homers; and they spread them out for themselves all around the camp.” Every single person gathered at least ten homers. I know that number probably means nothing to you, or at least it means nothing to me. I have no idea how much an homer is. However, I did google it to see. If we do a bit of math we see that 10 homers is equal to about 220,000cm3, and at 0.98gm/cm3 that works out to about 1900 birds, weighing about 475 pounds. You can’t look at that number and tell me that God isn’t a God of abundance.
Next, let's look at Peter when he was trying to catch some fish. Peter and his brother Andrew had been out all night trying to catch some fish. They were really behind on their taxes and they needed that money. They were not able to catch anything all night long. In the morning Jesus was on the shore and he ask Peter if He could get in his boat to preach to the people on shore. Afterwards Jesus told Peter to put his net back into the water. Peter explained they tried to catch fish all night and nothing happened but since Jesus was asking he would do it. Then in Luke 5:6 it says, “When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.” They had to call the other boat over to help and both boats were filled with fish. God knew how much money they owed. He could have given them just enough fish to pay off what they owed. But that is not who God is. He likes to go above and beyond what we need and what we expect.
There are stories of God’s abundance in our life time as well. I have told the story before and yet I don’t think you can repeat stories of miracles too often. My parents were praying for food one day as they had just said they would babysit a family of 8 kids and they had at least 8 kids of their own at this point. Within the hour of that prayer their neighbor came over and gave them grocery bags of food they didn’t need as they had their father move in with them and he had a lot of food at his house but they had also just gone shopping. Then there was another knock at the door and and someone else gave my parents a bunch of extra meat they had from their last hunting trip.
I talked about a story of abundance in my witness last week. God could have found Tony any job and yet He gave him a job with a promotion. He gave Tony a job that he loved with awesome people to work with. He moved us to a place where we had incredible friends and a great support system. He moved us to a place where we had an incredible house and the boys each had incredible friends. The teachers at the boys school were amazing. We didn’t lack anything.
My sister was searching for a new job. A part time job so she could have more time with her family. Not only did God find her a part time job, but he found her a job that checked all the boxes she was looking for. It was part time and it was fully remote. It had a flexible schedule so if her grandkids had to stay home from school she could help their parents out and watch them. She made more money per hour than she did in her full time job. It wasn’t just any job, it was the perfect job.
I am sure you all have your own stories of the abundance God has provided for you. If you can’t see the abundance, I challenge you to look for it. I challenge you to examine how God has answered your prayers. What have you asked for and what has He given you? I have a friend who decided to move closer to home. She and her husband decided to give themselves a year to sell their house, move back home and build a new house. Well, God had other plans. Within 3 months of deciding to move they had sold their house and started building their dream house closer to their parents. I believe they moved into their new house just after the new year, just 7 months after they had decided to move. Now they are living on a farm, in a newly built house, they have chickens, they are growing vegetables, they both have new jobs. God is so good! He is definitely a God of abundance. If you can’t see you abundance, keep looking I know it is there.
Dear Heavenly Father I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you. You are too good to us and we are so grateful. Thank you for the abundance you give to us. The abundance we don’t deserve and yet you give to us freely. Thank you for all the ways you show up for us Lord. You are truly amazing. Lord, we just ask that you help us to recognize where in our lives you are providing for us, where you are giving us an abundance. We ask you to show each one of us and help us to fully appreciate all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Tomorrow’s witness will be one of my sisters, Dianne. She has a witness of how God miraculously helped her pass a certification test she needed to pass. I look forward to sharing that with you tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!