Materialism and Christ
(A short meditation on Christ's provision for our material needs) By Earl Jackson
Php. 4:19 But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
The fact is that God provides for all of our needs. We must be careful never to neglect this aspect of His wonderful teachings. He taught us to pray to our heavenly Father "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). He also reassured us that God knows everything we have need of, and that the proper response to our own needs is to have absolute faith in God. We are not to be people of "little faith" but people of "absolute faith", "great faith".
Matt 6:30-33 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
God cares for our material needs as well as our spiritual needs. This is a great aspect of Christ's teachings, and we must never neglect it. While the so called prosperity gospel teachers tend to emphasize God's blessings to the exclusion of God's cursings (Deut. 28). The rest of us tend to emphasize that suffering, poverty and sickness comes from the hand of God and is something that we must endure with patience and without a response. Both aspects have some truth in them, but their confounded resistance of the opposing view, tends to rob them of the actual truth. Both forms of extreme teaching are heresy.
Christ wants to bless His children and provide for all of their needs. The proper response to both blessings and cursings, good things or bad, is faith. God calls us to pray for, lay hands on and anoint the sick with oil and we are to do so with absolute faith in a God who heals. The idea that the Sovereignty of God requires us to resign ourselves to suffering, rather than to avail ourselves of healing is ridiculous, and it express unbelief. God does what He wants, and He tells us what we are to do in response. "According to your faith be it done to you" (Matthew 9:29 ESV) is always a proper response for believers. Matthew 21:22 tells us "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive".
The Bible never glorifies the idea that sickness and poverty are the norm and standard for Christians. While it does teach that these come from the hand of the omnipotent God, it also teaches us that God knows what we have need of, and that we should ask in faith without wavering, and that God will hear us and answer our prayers. It is a cop-out to criticize the health and wealth teacher's false view of faith without also teaching the correct view that Christians are supposed to always live and walk by faith. Quite simply it means that faith does indeed grant access to the healing provisions, and other provisions that God has. While it is Gods will to send sickness and poverty, it is also God's will to deliver from these things. When you receive medicine from a doctor, it is not so that you can correct a mistake in the will of God, but because you acknowledge that it is also God's will to heal. When you pray for the sick, it is not so that they will be delivered from the will of God, it is so that they will also be delivered into the will of God. Faithless teaching is just as bad, if not worse, than the false teachings of the faith cults. Our God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. "Ask and ye shall receive" still applies to Christians. Beware of tossing out the baby with the bathwater when you criticize the word of faith cults. Their attitude of faith, is far to be preferred than an attitude of unbelief which turns God into a deaf, mute, blind and uncaring God who is powerless to do anything. Our God supplies all of our needs from his inexhaustible riches.
The fact is that God provides for all of our needs. We must be careful never to neglect this aspect of His wonderful teachings. He taught us to pray to our heavenly Father "Give us this day our daily bread" (Matthew 6:11). He also reassured us that God knows everything we have need of, and that the proper response to our own needs is to have absolute faith in God. We are not to be people of "little faith" but people of "absolute faith", "great faith".
Matt 6:30-33 Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
God cares for our material needs as well as our spiritual needs. This is a great aspect of Christ's teachings, and we must never neglect it. While the so called prosperity gospel teachers tend to emphasize God's blessings to the exclusion of God's cursings (Deut. 28). The rest of us tend to emphasize that suffering, poverty and sickness comes from the hand of God and is something that we must endure with patience and without a response. Both aspects have some truth in them, but their confounded resistance of the opposing view, tends to rob them of the actual truth. Both forms of extreme teaching are heresy.
Christ wants to bless His children and provide for all of their needs. The proper response to both blessings and cursings, good things or bad, is faith. God calls us to pray for, lay hands on and anoint the sick with oil and we are to do so with absolute faith in a God who heals. The idea that the Sovereignty of God requires us to resign ourselves to suffering, rather than to avail ourselves of healing is ridiculous, and it express unbelief. God does what He wants, and He tells us what we are to do in response. "According to your faith be it done to you" (Matthew 9:29 ESV) is always a proper response for believers. Matthew 21:22 tells us "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive".
The Bible never glorifies the idea that sickness and poverty are the norm and standard for Christians. While it does teach that these come from the hand of the omnipotent God, it also teaches us that God knows what we have need of, and that we should ask in faith without wavering, and that God will hear us and answer our prayers. It is a cop-out to criticize the health and wealth teacher's false view of faith without also teaching the correct view that Christians are supposed to always live and walk by faith. Quite simply it means that faith does indeed grant access to the healing provisions, and other provisions that God has. While it is Gods will to send sickness and poverty, it is also God's will to deliver from these things. When you receive medicine from a doctor, it is not so that you can correct a mistake in the will of God, but because you acknowledge that it is also God's will to heal. When you pray for the sick, it is not so that they will be delivered from the will of God, it is so that they will also be delivered into the will of God. Faithless teaching is just as bad, if not worse, than the false teachings of the faith cults. Our God's hand is not shortened that it cannot save. "Ask and ye shall receive" still applies to Christians. Beware of tossing out the baby with the bathwater when you criticize the word of faith cults. Their attitude of faith, is far to be preferred than an attitude of unbelief which turns God into a deaf, mute, blind and uncaring God who is powerless to do anything. Our God supplies all of our needs from his inexhaustible riches.
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