Is there something you lack? I have a message for you today, while you may not have everything you want our Heavenly Father gives you all that you need. What you need is necessary for your survival or can determine whether you will live or die whereas what you want is not necessarily a priority or a matter of life or death. God is more concerned about giving you all that you need as a priority than what you want. Our God is Jehovah Jireh, the only one who can provide you with what you need and in this context I will emphasis on God as a giver of provision, Jehovah Jireh in the Old and New Testament.

Abraham was obedient to God when God told him to sacrifice his son Isaac (Genesis 22). He started preparing to kill Isaac and had the fire and wood ready, he bound up Isaac and placed him on the altar. Just before he used the knife on his son, God gave him a ram as a substitute. Abraham called that place “The LORD will provide..and to this day it is said ‘on the mountain of the Lord it will be provided’ (Gen. 22:14 NIV).

God’s instruction was just a test (Gen. 22:1) which Abraham passed “And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only [son] from me.” (Gen. 22:12 KJV)

Can we honestly say that we live a life as Abraham did understanding the ways of God to the point that when we are in the midst of a crisis in which God requires us to sacrifice something we really love:

1.We call the act of sacrifice worship? Abraham told his servants to wait for him and Isaac while they went up the mountain to worship the Lord (Gen. 22:5).

2. Follow through with sacrificing what we feel God is calling us to however hard it is knowing that God has a glorious plan through it?

Did Abraham discern this command to kill his son was a test and so was determined to pass it by following through with the process of starting a fire and then raising his knife to kill Isaac?

I believe so. Abraham had so much faith in God supernaturally intervening in this act of “worship” he even told the servants “we will come back to you” (Gen. 22:5) note the “we” not “I”.

As Abraham may we always be on the “mountain of the Lord”, that place of intimacy with Him such that everything we do in obedience to Him is an act of worship unto Him.

May we also have the following attitude: if whatever I give up is returned to me by the Lord then “praise the Lord”, if it is not then I still say “praise the Lord”, for God is in absolute control and knows what I need and what is best for me for the fulfillment of His plans and purposes for my life.

There are spiritual and natural blessings and rewards God will release only after we have proved ourselves to be obedient to His commands.

Jehovah Jireh provides us with what we need. God provided Isaac to Abraham as a means to ensure His promise to Abraham to make him a father of many nations or a means through whom nations will be blessed would come to pass.

Isaac was the promised son given to the world from God through Abraham. Likewise Jesus is the promised son given to the world from God through Abraham’s descendants Mary and Joseph, specifically the God chosen royal lineage of David which Joseph is a descendant of.

When Adam and Eve sinned, God was grieved that His most favoured creation, created for fellowship with Him would desert Him through disobedience.

God our merciful Father, even when He pronounced punishment on Adam and Eve for their disobedience to Him (read Genesis 3) also pronounced a means of escape. This means of escape was Jesus Christ, God called him (Genesis 3:15) the “seed of the woman” that will crush the head of the serpent (Satan).

Here we see that at the beginning when all things were created the seed of the woman, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is spoken of as being already victorious in spiritual warfare for the sake of mankind. He was destined to arise on earth to overcome or defeat anything birthed by Satan.

Let us meditate on the following: Jesus is written of as being the Word who was in existence and with God “in the beginning” of creation and came to dwell among men on earth (John 1:1-14). By and for him things were created and “he is before all things” (Col. 1:16/17). Another evidence that Jesus existed before the foundations of the earth was that he was the Lamb that was slain by whose blood the heavenly warriors in God’s camp (Michael and the Angels) overcame Lucifer the fallen angel and his hordes (Rev 12:11).

Jesus Christ the Messiah is the provision descendants of Adam and Eve need to make peace with God through reconciliation to a place of fellowship with Him. This is why Jehovah Jireh who knows and desires to meet the needs of His beloved creation sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of the world (John 3:16).

JESUS WAS BROKEN FOR MANY, SO WE WOULD LIKEWISE BE BROKEN FOR MANY.

Jesus told the men who were seeking him (John 6:24-29) after he performed the miracle of multiplication of loaves and fishes not to labour for “meat” that perishes but for the meat that endures unto eternal life which he, Christ would give them.

He was speaking this way because he knew their motives, they were not seeking him because of the miracles of God, but because of the food he gave them to eat. Jesus however wanted them to understand the futility of life without God; He is the provision “meat” they needed for eternal life or their salvation. In order to do the works of God they needed to believe in him whom God sent.

That we will always say and be instruments of God to lead others to say what the crowd replied “Lord always give us this bread” (John 6:34 KJV).

Jesus said that Manna, the food God gave to the Israelites when they were in the wilderness was not the true bread from heaven, but he, Jesus is because  he is the bread of God that came down to give life to the world (John 6:32-33)
Jesus also said “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will not be hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.” (John 6:35 KJV)

When an individual accepts Jesus Christ the “Bread of Life” as Lord and Saviour, God’s predestined plan for their lives as an instrument to bring eternal and abundant life (John 10:10/11:25) of God to multitudes is made possible. This plan is their Abrahamic inheritance because as a believer in Jesus Christ, they are called to be a blessing to nations.
“And if ye [be] Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3:29 KJV)

GOD IN THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST: JEHOVAH JIREH IS THE BREAD OF LIFE

Brothers and sisters, here is the great mystery and cause for us who believe in Jesus Christ as our precious Lord and Saviour to rejoice, that God himself came as our much needed provision in the person of Jesus Christ!

While Isaac and Jesus Christ were both given by God and for the purpose of mankind’s need for redemption, Isaac was a human being called and chosen by God, while Jesus Christ was God himself.

Yes Jehovah Jireh gave Himself as the ultimate and once and for all sacrifice for the sins of mankind when He came to earth as the sacrificial lamb (Rev 12:11) or “seed of the woman” (Gen 3:15). The provider became the provision or means for redemption.

He who had no sin became a curse or a sin for sinful man. (2 Corinth. 5:21)

Jesus is the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of His person (Heb 1:3 KJV).

God was in Christ reconciling the world back to himself (2 Corinth. 5:19).

The angel’s announcement to Mary as to how Jesus would be conceived, by the Holy Spirit (who is God) overshadowing her, affirms who Jesus was
“35…The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35KJV)

In this Christmas season and from henceforth let us always have at the forefront of our minds, the true nature of Jesus Christ, not only as the Son of Man or “child” “born into us” but also as the Son of God given unto us (Is. 9:6) “Given” because he existed before creation and is God Himself. God came down Himself as a Man of War for the sake of inhabitants on the earth warned by Michael and the Angels following their Victorious warfare in heaven when Satan and the other fallen angels were cast down to earth (Rev. 12:11-13).

We can rest assured therefore that as they overcame in heaven by the blood of the Lamb and their testimony, so too every believer in Jesus Christ who resolves to live a life of obedience and trust in God will overcome.

We are more than conquerors through Christ who loves us (Romans 8:37)

You are blessed, determine to stay blessed.

Deborah Esther
©Deborah E. Nyamekye 13/12/2015

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