We are living in a war-torn age, an age of cold wars and hot wars—when a fresh outbreak is hardly news anymore, other than the fact that a new arrow pierces the hearts of people everywhere.
With the adversary on the other side misinterpreting our intentions, with a world whose mind is full of suspicion, there is a climate for hot and cold wars in this age. It is also a time of great tragedy. Nearly every day when we pick up our newspapers, we learn of some tragedy of nature: an earthquake, a typhoon, a hurricane, a tornado—something of a catastrophic nature that has taken several hundred or more lives.
We’ve never seen so much sickness; for example, so much cancer and so many heart attacks. Disease is rampant in the world. It’s also a time of economic stress and strain. Sometimes people’s homes are torn apart because of it.
We received a telephone call to Richard Roberts and the Abundant Life Prayer Group the other day. A woman said her husband had been out of work for over six months. They had seven children. They were unable to make ends meet and she had now become so despondent that she wondered if killing herself was the way out. The prayer partner on the other end of the line talked her into reading the Bible, into taking Christ as the answer to her problems. And, thank God, she accepted Christ as her Savior and as her answer!
Richard Roberts have said all these things to point out the fact that, in my opinion, Christ is for this crisis in which we live! Once, the disciples were involved in a great period of stress and strain. Their hearts were filled with fear. And Christ said, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He told them that He was preparing a place for them in Heaven and that soon He would leave them and go there and they would follow Him. And He said, “You know the way.”
One of the men said, “Lord, we don’t know the way. What is the way?” And He answered, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the answer” (John 14:1-6).
Christ did not come to talk about the way; He is the way. He did not come to talk about life; He is life. Jesus Christ is the answer to the economic stress and strain of our everyday lives.
When Things Go Wrong
Recently I dealt with a very fine Christian man who had abruptly lost his job. This man went to pieces; he panicked. And I spent a great deal of time in prayer and in counsel with this gentleman, trying to show him that as a child of God, he had no right to throw up his hands in despair and panic like a man who did not believe in God. I said to him, “Christ is your answer.” I quoted him Philippians 4:19 where Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
I said, “God is your job. God is the answer to this great tragedy of yours. God is the One who will take care of you.”
And he said, “But Richard Roberts, this company I have been working for is the one that writes my check. You say Christ will supply my need; I believe that, but this company writes the check.”
I said, “Look, the company you work for is only the instrument. Christ is the answer.” Finally I asked him to hear me out on John 10:10 where Christ said, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” I said, “Now, your life—your earthly life—consists of food, shelter, and provision for your wife and your children. Isn’t that right?” He said, “Yes.”
“Christ said, ‘I am come that you might have that life.’ Christ is the answer to your job, your business, your economic stress and strain. Put your mind on God because if your mind is upon God, God will either give you a better job, or He will create a new job, or He will do something for you from an unexpected source.”
I dealt with that man until his faith became strong. That very day, God gave him a new and better job! Christ is the answer.
Prayer Changes Things
If we can only find Christ in this hour, we have found the answer. The key is to believe as Christ said, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove” (Matthew 17:20). You know, the grain of mustard seed is one of the tiniest of all seeds and yet it grows into a tree.
Christ says if you can have just a little faith in your heart and use it, then you can say to these problems— to these moments of stress and strain—“Be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea.” And these things will move out of your life. Christ said that. He said that men ought not to faint but to pray because prayer changes things.
Have you forgotten how to pray? Have you not been praying? In this period of stress and strain in your finances, in a time when cancer or heart attack strikes, in an hour when the world is confused and torn with cold wars and hot wars, have you forgotten to pray? Oh, Christ said, men ought not to faint.
Don’t Give Up
David said that men and women who have faith in God should not give up. They should not be beggars, because God does not forsake people who put their trust in Him. “Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread,” David said in Psalm 37:25. I believe that men should work, that men should use their hands, that men should put themselves into this battle of life and have faith.
I believe God will meet the needs of people if they do their part and if they have faith in God. In Philippians 4:19, Paul said, “My God shall supply all your need.” Not the United States Government, not our state, not our boss, not our job, but God.
God may use some of those things as instruments, but God Himself is the One who shall supply our needs.
Christ Is Our Answer
I believe in giving our lives to God. I believe in tithing. I believe in taking out our wallets and giving one-tenth of every dollar we have into the service of Christ. I believe if we do that, the Word of God will be fulfilled in our lives. Tithing is one of the answers, because when we give one-tenth of our income to Christ, we are putting our trust in God. We are not hogging it all up ourselves. God only asks one-tenth and He gives us nine-tenths. How great God is!
This is the simple but powerful formula for our prosperity in an age of economic stress and strain. “Bring all the tithes into the storehouse…said the Lord…and I will open you the windows of heaven. I will pour you out a blessing that there is not room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10).
Pay your tithes. Pray unto God. Refuse to faint. Put your mind on Christ…because Christ is the answer—for you and for me—in our crisis.