“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for He has said, “I will never leave you for forsake you”.”
The Lord promises to never leave nor forsake those who believe in Him. He points us to being content with what we have and to trust His provision.
The Lord draws close to us in many ways and the key of knowing Him is to seek to experience His closeness day by day. Father is always near.
One of the privileges of being a pastor is that there are occasions when the Presence of God becomes very real, despite suffering. This often happens when all the pretence of life is stripped away and we are only left with the bare bones. Usually this happens when I visit someone in hospital. Just this past week, four people from our church have been visited by one of the Pastors and each received the Lord's Supper. One of them is, at the time of writing, close to death. The striking feature of being with them was the strong Presence of Jesus in their rooms.
The one close to death, Margaret, had her niece staying with her in the hospital room. The niece noticed that her Aunt's arms and hands had become black. So she decided to place a small Bible in her hands, which Margaret clutched, despite being unconscious, next to her heart. After a while the niece looked at the hands and saw that they had returned to normal colour! The skin of the arms remained blackened, but the hands had normal skin tone. As she showed Kathryn and me the hands clutching the Bible, the Lord's Presence was very real.
This act should not have surprised us as the Bible is a spiritual power object.
Two of Father's great promises are that He will both provide and remain. Think about the widow of Zarephath in 1Kings 4: 8-15 or about Stephen in Acts 7: 54ff. Both promises came true. Of course, the promises are not only for the individual; they apply equally, if not more so, to our life together as the Body of Christ.
In the coming days, we can be sure of Father's Presence and Providential care.
Peter Thompson