Strapped for Cash?

2 Corinthians 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

Living by faith financially can be a wonderful thing. Back in Yeshua's (Jesus') day, people didn't have savings and money market accounts, mutual funds, and IRA's. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that those things are bad to have. What I'm saying is that those of us who live without them have an opportunity -- an opportunity to see God provide in miraculous ways!

One month when we first came to Israel, we had reached the end of our finances on a consecutive number of unexpected crises. Now we had to pay our rent and our bank account was almost totally depleted and we were getting a little nervous. "Lord!" we cried. "We came here to Israel to be a light and to do your work, what's going on?! We need a miracle!"

I kid you not. The next day, our phone rang. Someone who didn't know a thing about our ministry called to let us know that while he had been traveling in Europe he met a woman who found out he was coming to the Land soon and gave him an envelope to give us as soon as he could. Wouldn't you know it, that money was the exact figure we needed and it came just in time to pay our rent.

It wasn't long before we realized that living by faith would become a way of life for us. After a few miracles like this one, we stopped getting nervous. We knew that God would always come through.

John Guest said that "It is remarkable to think that God has given us a partnership with him in directing the course of human events. It is extraordinary to realize that our prayer can change events and circumstances in the world around us. But what is just as remarkable is that when we pray, we change. More often than not we become the answer to our own prayers as we open up ourselves to God in prayer.

If you're struggling today, struggle no longer! God is faithful! Let's ask the Lord to help us begin to see our needs as opportunities to see His miracle-working power!

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Recently, I’ve been impressed by the Lord to address the anxieties many are feeling about the future– how to be strong in the face of the intense opposition we’ll be facing as believers. One of the founders of the modern state of Israel, David Ben-Gurion once said, “Courage is a special kind of knowledge, the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. From this knowledge comes an inner strength that inspires us to push on in the face of great difficulty. What can seem impossible is often possible with courage.”

For a season, I worked in Washington, D.C., for one of America’s largest Christian political organizations. Sometimes I saw how politics could get ugly and, more often than not, how it changed people — not for the better…but usually for the worse!

Have you ever felt uneasy, unsettled or unstable? Or maybe a better question is — who hasn’t? How do we overcome these feelings?

Is that a trend or something? I don’t know what it is but I’ve heard that phrase said quite a bit. We were even walking down the Wal-Mart isle to pick up a few things and my wife showed me a T-shirt with “I have issues” written across the front! I guess the world is coming to the sad reality that we really do have some issues.

It never ceases to amaze me, the way the devil uses our offenses and our “offendedness” to divide and conquer marriages, relationships, churches — even entire nations!

There’s an old adage, “Have the heart of a lion!” Hearing it, we think, “courage”. This recalls a quote I once heard; “Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened”. I doubt there’s a single hero story in which the fearless leader fails to inspire the righteous determination of his army or people. The voice of the captain resounds through the ranks evoking the fierce cry of every warrior ready to face death or worse, for the cause. Courage truly is contagious.

The Hebrew word for “face” is “panim”, (the Hebrew letters, peh-nun-yud-mem), literally “faces”, a plural word. Normally, when we think about God, we focus only upon one of His “faces” at a time. God is “love” – or He is “holy”– or He is “just”— or He’s a God of “wrath”. Yet, of course, ALL these “faces” are His at once; and so the word “panim” accurately reflects the truth of God’s multifaceted being. As we get to know Him better we begin to appreciate the complexity of His nature and the fact that our focus on one “face” is a very limited view, since there’s so much more going on in His amazing “Personality”.