Having Faith for God to Meet Your Needs

February 1, 2023

John 14:1 (CEV) Don’t be worried! Have faith in God and have faith in me.

How do we do that? How do we trust God to meet our needs?

Every time we worry is a wasted second of our life. It's wasted energy. God says it doesn't change anything. It's unreasonable. It's unhelpful. It's unnatural. It's unbelief. It's unhealthy. 

HOW DO I TRUST GOD TO MEET MY NEEDS?

Well, the Bible says we do four things. Number one, we do this every day. It's not a one-time thing. 

1. I ASK him to be my shepherd every day. 

Every day, I ask Jesus to be my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. If I ask him to be my shepherd, then he's going to feed and he's going to lead and he's going to meet my need in that day.  

What do you do? You do this every morning. When you get up, you sit on the side of your bed and you say, "The Lord is my shepherd. Jesus Christ, I'm expecting you to feed me, to lead me, and to meet my needs today. I will trust you today." I start every day by saying, "The Lord is my shepherd. You're a good God." Then I say it throughout the day. Every time we go into a meeting, "The Lord is my shepherd. He's going to help me in this meeting." We’ve got a parent teacher conference, "The Lord is my shepherd. What I'm about to hear, I may not want to hear, but he's going to feed me, lead me, and meet my needs." We’ve got a major decision to make, "The Lord is my shepherd." We might say it 10 or 15 times a day. If we'll start saying that phrase, our worry will go down. 

John 10:14-15 I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep. 

"The Lord is my shepherd." Who is that? Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd and I know my own sheep and they know me and I lay down my life for my sheep." That's what he did on the cross. He gave his life for you. If he loved you enough to die for you, he certainly loves you enough to feed, lead, and meet your need.  Every day we need to pray the prayer that David prayed in 

Psalm 28:9 (CEV) Come save us and bless us. Be our shepherd and always carry us in your arms.

Do you remember when you were a little kid and your parents would go on an outing, you'd go on a picnic or a hike or you'd go to Disney World

and at the end of the day, your little legs are so tired, mom or dad has to carry you out to the car? Your legs give out as a little kid. That's what happens during the week sometimes. You say, "God, I am worn out. I don't think I can put one foot in front of the other. I need you to carry me right now. Carry me to the car. Take me home. Get me home." He says, "I'm your shepherd. I'll care for you. I'll bless you. I'll protect you. I'll save you. I'll guide you. I'll direct you. I'll discipline you when you need it. I'll defend you. I will do all of these things. When you're worn out and you're tired and you can't put one foot in front of the other, I'll carry you. Just hop on and I'll take you to the car. I'll take you home." 

That's what you do. Every day, ask him, "Will you be my shepherd?"  

2. I PUT him first place in every area of my life. 

This is extremely important that I give Jesus first place in every area of my life. Now, if we're a believer, we've given him first place in our life as a whole, but there's different parts of our life that are not under his control unless we give him access. He needs to be Lord over every area. Lord over your family. Lord over your free-time. Lord over your work, your spending habits, your time online, your hobbies. Each area we put God first in, he will supply our needs in that area. 

Matthew 6:32 Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs.

Let me stop right there. Our Heavenly Father perfectly knows already what we need. God allows needs in our life so we'll come to him, so he can answer that need, so we'll trust him. Anytime we worry, that is a warning light that that particular area of our life we have not given him first place. Every time we worry, we go, "Oh, that's an area where God's not number one." Any area of our life where God is not number one, we're going to worry about it. Any area of our life where God's not number one, that's going to be a source of insecurity in our life, our job or anything else. When we make Jesus Christ number one in every single area of our life, it really simplifies our priorities and it also gives us a whole lot less to worry about. When we give it to God, then we don't have to worry about it. 

3. I GIVE him my worries in prayer. 

God wants us to relax. He wants us to give him our worries in prayer. We say, "Jesus, just take these things I'm worried about," and we just hand them over to him. 

We also need to make a list of worries. Sometimes you may have this sense of, "I just feel anxious. I have this general anxiety. I feel a little nervous. I don't really know what's causing it." Well, you can just say, "God, I give you my generalized worry," but it's even better to stop and go, "What is it that's really bugging me? Am I worried that somebody's going to disapprove of me?" You write that down. You write them all down, and then you give God your worries. You say, "Here's the list, Lord. Here's some stuff that's on my mind. I'm not going to keep them. I'm going to give them to you."

1 Peter 5:7 Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.

We relax and we give him our worries. We just say, "God, here are the things I'm worried about." Earlier we read that verse where Jesus said, "Don't worry about anything. I'm going to meet your needs." Well, right before that, he had said this. 

Philippians 4:6-7 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. 

The Bible calls this the peace that passes understanding. What is the peace that passes understanding? It's when we're at peace and we have

no logical, rational reason to be at peace. I just lost my job. Somehow I'm at peace about it. Why? The Lord is my shepherd. We just got the dreaded word and report from the doctor. It's cancer. For some reason, I got peace about it. Why? Peace that passes understanding because the Lord is my shepherd. I just found out some bad news that a dear friend of mine just died. Somehow I'm at peace about it in my heart. Why? Because the Lord is my shepherd. He feeds and he leads and he meets my needs. 

4. I TRUST him for one day at a time. 

Matthew 6:34 So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

Each day has enough trouble of its own." We don't need to borrow trouble. He's saying, “don't borrow trouble for tomorrow. I'm going to give you enough grace for today. I'm not going to give you the grace for tomorrow until you get to tomorrow. You don't need it today.” There's a couple reasons why we should only live one day at a time. First, when we worry about tomorrow's problems, we miss all the blessings of today. Some of us, we got something coming up in two weeks or a month and it's scaring us to death and we're making it worse because we're ruining every day between now and then by worrying about it. We're missing today's blessing. Some people are so worried about retirement, they're not enjoying today. They're missing the blessing of today. He says, “I don't want you doing that. Take it one day at a time.”

The other reason is we cannot solve tomorrow's problems with today's power. When we get there, tomorrow, God will give us the power and the perspective and the grace and the wisdom. He'll give us what we need we get there. The Bible does not say, "Give us this day our weekly bread." No, we're to pray, "Give me today my daily bread. Give me just enough strength to make it through the day." He wants us to depend on him one

day at a time.

It's okay to plan for tomorrow. It's okay to plan for the future, just don't worry about the future. Planning is good. Worrying is bad. Jesus highly recommends planning. There's a whole book in the Bible about planning. It's called the book of Proverbs. God says it's foolish not to plan. Only a fool would go all the way through life unprepared for something you know is inevitable called death. Planning is good. Worrying is bad. We can plan for tomorrow but we can't live in tomorrow. We can only live today.

Now I know that the future can often seem very overwhelming. God graciously divided it up into 24 hour segments so we don't get all the future at once. We get it 24 hours at a time. If God gave us all the future at one time, it would overwhelm us but we're not there yet. We're not ready for it. God gives it to you in 24 hour increments.

Matthew 6:34 (MSG) Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.