The title of today’s study might seem a bit silly at first, but it’s meant to cause us to honestly stop and think. Each of us carries with us a certain perspective of God – a perspective that has been shaped by the events of our life, the doctrines and traditions we have learned, and the general thoughts and feelings that we have on a day-to-day basis.
The question found in the title of today’s study, is one that each of us must ask… Do we actually see Jesus as a provider? – because it is one of the ways which He has clearly revealed Himself. A provider in every single way and sense of the word.
In some cases, there has been push-back against the idea of seeing Jesus as a provider, because they say “it makes God into a genie” – some have felt that it is flat-out wrong to ask God for things, or that it is somehow greedy, selfish or worldly. Others have been taught that God really doesn’t care about provision, because that is too carnal, and God only cares about spiritual things. But again, is that how He has revealed Himself? Is that the picture He has painted Himself as in the scriptures?
Today we will take a look at the picture of Jesus as a provider, as demonstrated in scripture, and see a crucial aspect of Himself, that is sometimes ignored, but one that He wants us to see and receive, as much as any other.
So right from the start, the obvious question that some of you may have, is why is this important? And the response to that, is that it is important because the idea of provision, or dare I say it, prosperity, is an aspect of God that Jesus clearly reveals and shows in scripture. Simply put, provision and prosperity comes from God. These are not evil things, nor are they evil terms to speak of. God delights in the prosperity of His people, according to Psalms 35:27, and we should rejoice in that truth!
The Hebrew word translated as “prosperity” there is שָׁלוֹם, which has an extremely broad definition, including salvation, peace, health, security and prosperity! And שָׁלוֹם, is also a common greeting and farewell. So God actually built it into the Hebrew language that when we are coming and going, we would always have the blessings, of health, prosperity, security salvation and peace on our lips and coming out of our mouth.
That may be an interesting point of trivia, but it also shows us an example of how freely God wanted His people to speak of prosperity; the provision and prosperity which is a blessing from Him, remember.
Now when we get onto the subject of the provision and prosperity of God, there are some who always want to translate and view it in a purely spiritual lens. As if God only and exclusively deals with spiritual prosperity and has nothing to do with the “here-and-now” regarding this physical world. Is that accurate?
Let’s now take a look at some examples of God’s provision to determine if it is exclusively spiritual or not.
In 2nd Kings 4:1-7, we see the account of a widow and her sons, who owed a large debt to a creditor (sounds a lot like today, doesn’t it?), and she cried out to Elisha, the prophet of God for help? What happens next? Does Elisha tell her, “Oh, you’re far too concerned with worldly matters! You need to pray more and get your mind on spiritual things!”
Does Elisha tell her that her life may be difficult here, but her suffering is earning her spiritual rewards?
Both of these are common attitudes and ideas that we see today, but let’s see what the scriptures say in 2nd Kings 4:1-7:
“Now there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets to Elisha, saying, Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant did fear the LORD: and the creditor is come to take to him my two sons to be slaves.
And Elisha said to her, What shall I do for you? tell me, what have you in the house? And she said, Your handmaid has not any thing in the house, save a pot of oil.
Then he said, Go, borrow you vessels abroad of all your neighbors, even empty vessels; borrow not a few.
And when you are come in, you shall shut the door on you and on your sons, and shall pour out into all those vessels, and you shall set aside that which is full.
So she went from him, and shut the door on her and on her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured out.
And it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, Bring me yet a vessel. And he said to her, There is not a vessel more. And the oil stayed.
Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, Go, sell the oil, and pay your debt, and live you and your children of the rest.”
This account is commonly referred to as the miracle of the oil. And as we examine the story, what we find is that this is a real and physical financial problem that this widow is having – this is not spiritual, but physical and financial.
We see in verse 2, that she had “nothing in the house” except for a single pot of oil.
Now again, how did Elisha respond to that? If he was going to promote some of our modern ideas and theologies, he might have said to her; “Don’t worry, my dear! You may be poor here on the earth, but blessed are the poor!”
(Note that this is not meant to downplay the words of Jesus, though our modern usage sometimes misuses what Jesus said)
Yet what we see here is that Elisha did not take any of our modern positions… we see that God actually worked through Elisha to produce a wonderful miracle of financial provision for this widow and her sons. So much so in-fact that he tells her in verse three to go and buy vessels for the oil that is about to manifest, and he tells her not to buy merely a few! In other words, prepare for massive amounts of oil!
Indeed, we see that the oil did not stop manifesting until they ran out of vessels to hold it, and every jar was full! This means that if she had bought more jars, the oil would’ve kept flowing even more!
Finally in verse 7, we see that she is instructed to sell the oil, pay off her debt, and live ff the rest with her sons! She was not poor any longer! She had enough money to pay off her debt and live the rest of her life off what was left over.
Now I ask you… is that merely spiritual provision?
Indeed not.
Let’s take another example of God’s provision and prosperity, found in Luke 5:1-10:
“And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed on him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
Now when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a catch.
And Simon answering said to him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at your word I will let down the net.
And when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net broke.
And they beckoned to their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the catch of the fishes which they had taken:
And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Fear not; from now on you shall catch men.”
So here we have Jesus Himself instructing Simon to lower his nets and he will get a catch of fish. Simon replies in verse 5 saying “we have fished all night and didn’t catch anything, but because you said so, I will lower the net” – and notice the detail there… Jesus said to lower the nets (plural), and Simon only lowered the net (singular). We have a similar situation here as with our previous account of the widow and the oil… had Simon lowered more nets, he would’ve had an even greater supply, but what he got was still amazingly wonderful.
We see in verses 6 and 7, we see that they had such a great catch of fish that the one net that Simon lowered, broke because of all the fish, and he had to call for help in order to reel it all in! There were so many fish in fact, that they filled-up both ships, and the ships began to sink! Talk about a haul!
Now remember that Simon Peter was a fisherman, this was his job! Jesus just gave him the catch and haul of a lifetime! Was this merely spiritual prosperity? Of course not! This was most definitely physical and financial prosperity again! This is not wrong, or evil, and in this instance even helped Simon Peter begin to see who Jesus was, as we see in verse 8… Take note also that the provision came before Simon’s acknowledgment – a truth that we often reverse today. We often tell people to repent, and then God may bless you. Yet we see here that the blessing and prosperity of Jesus came before, and even facilitated Simon’s repentance.
Are you beginning to see the goodness of God’s provision and prosperity?
Consider also Matthew 17:24-27. A question comes up about whether Jesus actually pays the temple tax… and Peter answered “yes”. And after Jesus used this to explain His position as the Son of God, He again instructed Peter to fish, this time producing a fish with a coin in it’s mouth, which pays for both Jesus and Peter’s tax money! This again is another example of financial provision.
Why is all of this important to see? Because again, when we start to downplay, ignore, or outright deny a particular area of God’s provision, we rob the receivers (ourselves) of the gift of that provision.
Here today we have merely looked at His financial provision, because it is one of the most downplayed, along with health and healing; and the scriptures are equally as full showing God’s provision and prosperity of health and healing as well, a topic which we have examined many times before.
Having said that, it is important to see, these aspects of Jesus, and the provision and prosperity that He gives, it’s important to remind ourselves of these truths and hold-fast to them, because as 3rd John 1:2 says:
“Beloved, I wish above all things that you may prosper and be in health, even as your soul prospers.”
As we have studied before, your “soul” is your mind, emotions and will. And in order for us to truly prosper in the fullest sense and meaning of the word, we must recognize that God is the source of all prosperity, whether that is prosperity in your spirit, prosperity in your body (healing and health) or even as we have seen today, prosperity in your finances. And as we saw at the start of our study today, God actually delights in our prosperity, as any good Father would delight in the prosperity of their child whom they love. And it is Him who gives it to us – all we must do is accept His free gift and receive.
That’s why it’s important to see these aspects of Jesus, and not downplay, disregard or deny them.
I hope that this study has strengthened you today, in the goodness and mercy of God in Christ.
Be blessed.