Gifts from God!

“If you … know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11 NIV)

God is the source of everything. Everything you see in the world and everything you can’t see in the world and in the universe, God made. He’s the source of every good thing in the universe.

As you depend on God as your source for everything, there are four truths you need to remember.

First, everything is a gift from God. Nothing you have, have you earned. It’s all a gift of God’s grace. If God didn’t want to give it, you wouldn’t have it. Read James 1:17.

Second, there’s nothing you need that God can’t provide. You don’t know what you’re going to need the rest of this year. But whatever it is, God has the power to supply it. Read: Philippians 4:19.

Third, God wants to give you everything you need.    Read Matthew 7:11.  God wants to meet your need.

And, here’s the fourth thing: He’s waiting on you. James 4:2 says,“. . . You do not have because you do not ask God.”

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12:3)

In the context of this verse, Paul is concerned that people were thinking of themselves “more highly than [they] ought to think.” His final remedy for this pride is to say that not only are spiritual gifts a work of God’s free grace in our lives, but so also is the very faith with which we use those gifts.

This means that every possible ground of boasting is taken away. How can we boast if even the qualification for receiving gifts is also a gift?

This truth has a profound impact on how we pray. Jesus gives us the example in Luke 22:31–32. Before Peter denies him three times Jesus says to him, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus prays for Peter’s faith to be sustained even through sin, because he knows that God is the one who sustains faith. So we should pray for ourselves and for others this way.

Let us pray daily: “O Lord, thank you for my faith. Sustain it. Strengthen it. Deepen it. Don’t let it fail. Make it the power of my life, so that in everything I do you get the glory as the great Giver. Amen.”