Better Than a “Silver Lining”
Read 2 Corinthians 9.
During the early days of the Great Depression in the United States, people talked and sang about the clouds having a “silver lining.” One skeptic said, “It’s fine for a cloud to have a silver lining, but how do you get it to the mint so you can spend it?”
Jesus Christ is not only sufficient for a man’s spiritual needs, but He is also sufficient for his material needs. Look at 2 Corinthians 9:8: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”
All grace–always–all sufficiency–all things–every good work! Talk about a man-sized promise for Christian living today!
Certainly God is concerned about your material needs. He feeds the birds of the air and even takes note when a tiny sparrow falls dead to the earth. Second Corinthians 9 deals primarily with a special offering Paul was receiving to assist the poor saints in Jerusalem. Paul assured his readers that their faithful stewardship would result in God’s faithful care of their needs. “Because you are faithful to give to others,” Paul writes, “your Lord will be faithful to care for you.”
Of course, if a man is careless in his stewardship, he cannot honestly claim this promise. But the Christian who knows how to give to the work of the Lord will find God giving back to him in greater measure than ever he gave to others. Christ is sufficient for every material need that a believer faces when he is in the will of God.
(Copyright, Warren W. Wiersbe. First appeared in Thoughts for Men on the Move. May not be copied or reproduced without express written permission of the author.)
Dr. Warren Wiersbe (1929-2019) was an internationally known Bible teacher, author, and conference speaker. He graduated in 1953 from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lombard, Illinois. While attending seminary, he was ordained as pastor of Central Baptist Church in 1951 and served until 1957. From September 1957 to 1961, Wiersbe served as Director of The Literature Division for Youth for Christ International. From 1961 to 1971 he pastored Calvary Baptist Church of Covington, Kentucky south of Cincinnati, Ohio. His sermons were broadcast as the “Calvary Hour” on a local Cincinnati radio station. From 1971 to 1978, He served as the pastor of Moody Church in Chicago 1971 to 1978. While at Moody Church he continued in radio ministry. Between August 1979 and March 1982, he wrote bi-weekly for Christianity Today as “Eutychus X”, taught practical theology classes at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Deerfield, Illinois, and wrote the course material and taught a Doctor of Ministry course at Trinity and Dallas Seminary. In 1980 he transitioned to Back to the Bible radio broadcasting network where he worked until 1990. Dr. Wiersbe became Writer in Residence at Cornerstone University in Grand Rapids and Distinguished Professor of Preaching at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. In his lifetime, Dr. Wiersbe wrote over 170 books—including the popular Be series, which has sold over four million copies. Dr. Wiersbe was awarded the Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement by the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (ECPA).
