Valley Grove Assembly of God
July 13, 2014
Dr. Marilyn S. Murphree
Living in the Sufficiency of God
II Corinthians 9:6-15
God doesn’t expect us to live on miracles all the time. He expects us to live in His sufficiency.
Many times people wait until a crisis situation occurs and then call out to God in desperation for a miracle. He can give you a miracle if you need one, but He would rather you live in His sufficiency as you go along. We may think sufficiency refers just to money to pay our bills, but it goes far beyond that. It can mean a lot of different things—for example a lot of people live in some kind of a crisis all the time. Their household is stirred up all the time with no sense of calmness or peace. Somebody is fighting over something or somebody is always depressed over something. Or someone is always offended by what people say.
God expects us to position ourselves so He can get us in the stream of His sufficiency—sufficiency means enough and more than enough. How do we know this? Let’s take a look at our scripture for today in II Corinthians 9:6-15. This scripture starts out by talking about sowing sparingly and sowing generously. He says when you sow sparingly you reap sparingly or when you sow generously you reap generously. But today I want to focus on verse 8. And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work. He is saying you have the opportunity to decide how you are going to sow—and how much of a harvest you prefer to have come in. We drove up to the Amish country and there were big fields of corn growing on both sides of the highway—looked like there was going to be a good harvest unless some fortuitous circumstance happened like a storm or something to wipe out the crop.
“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” (II Corinthians 9:8 KJV).
How do we move on over into His supply? I came up with three things we should consider.
1. Believe that He WANTS you to live in His sufficiency: “But my God shall supply ALL your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).
Psalm 23:1 says,”The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.’ Another version says, “I shall not be IN WANT.” (NIV)
Psalm 34:10 says, “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”
Psalm 84:11, “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.”
There are enough scriptures to let us know that God has PLENTY for us and is glad to give us what we need. One preacher preached on Psalm 23:1 and said, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” and promptly followed it with the statement that it doesn’t mean that.” So much of the time we DON’T BELIEVE that God wants us to live in His supply whether it be finances or our health or any number of things. Listen to people talk about “my diabetes—my this or that.” We put the limits on God in so many ways when we don’t believe. Scripture says, “All things are possible with God.” Did it ever occur to you that God doesn’t want us to be healed all the time??? He wants us to live in health which would be better.
Jesus said, “with men this is impossible but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26).
Luke 18:27 says, “the things which are impossible with men are possible with God.”
Does God want to do this for us? Matthew 7:9-11 says, “what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish will he give him a serpent?”
If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto your children how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
We have to reprogram our thinking when it comes to God. We get so used to believing that there is lack and not enough in the world and we live by the world’s economy instead of God’s economy. Not enough to pay my bills, can’t be in good health if I’m old…
Psalm 91;16 SAYS, “With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
Find some scriptures that convince you that God has ENOUGH to meet any need you have and that he is able to get it to you no matter what it takes.
God is our sufficiency—not ourselves. II Corinthians 3:5 says, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves but OUR SUFFICIENCY IS OF GOD>”
How many believe that God wants us to live in His sufficiency as we go along day by day? Not just on Sunday or at some time when we are experiencing a miracle or a mountain top experience?
I used to like the song by the Carpenters called, “Rainy Days and Mondays get me Down.” Don’t know why but just did. But actually the words to that song are not uplifting. If you say Rainy days get me down—depress me—and why would Mondays be so bad? You have to get up and go to work after the weekend. Maybe it’s a long, aggravating day. But if you are living in God’s sufficiency, He can give you what you need to deal with aggravating situations and aggravating people or cold, dark rainy weather. His sufficiency takes us through highs and lows, mountains and valleys. Write down some of these encouraging scriptures that tell you that God has the very best for you. Reach out and take it. Scripture says, “Oh taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 35:8) YOU taste and see. That’s the subject of the sentence.
2. Be Consistent—Consistency is very important in our walk with God. Once I had a person say, “I paid my tithes ONCE and I couldn’t pay my bills so I didn’t do it again.” Well, you can’t just “try it” once and then say it doesn’t work. We need to be consistent over a period of time and give God a chance to turn things around. When I was in college my mother had a food stand as a part of a weekly auction. We sold sandwiches and French fries and she baked homemade bread and pies and sold them every Friday night. She gave me $6.00 a week and I took 60 cents and put it in a tithe envelope and put it in the offering plate every Sunday. That was back in the early 69’s. Our pastor laughed about my doing that week after week, but I believe God honored that consistency on my part. He honored the widow’s mite didn’t He? If we expect to move over into His sufficiency, we need to develop a LIFESTYLE of consistency, not just in giving but in our faithful church attendance, our work habits over a period of time. Sometimes we think it doesn’t matter if we are haphazard, but it does matter. If you are learning to play a musical instrument and don’t practice all week and cancel your lessons when you don’t FEEL like going, you probably won’t become a very good musician. Consistency doesn’t show up immediately. Takes time for all things to come together. Most people don’t want to be consistent all the time. It is surprising how so many people get a headache on Sunday morning and it clears up by noon—too late to go to church. One scripture that encourages us to be consistent in our walk with the Lord is Revelation 2:10, “be thou faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.” Being a faithful and consistent Christian is not all mountain top experiences but leads us to our reward in the end as we continue to travel in His sufficiency.
3. Be Grateful—Appreciate His Sufficiency—One time we had a big bill to be paid that month. I said, “I need to write a check for this bill, and Walter said, ‘take what you need.’ I thought, wonder how much he has in his checking account anyway. What if he doesn’t have enough to cover the check. He said, ‘take what you need.’ The check wasn’t going to bounce and our checks won’t bounce in God’s economy either. He doesn’t have insufficient funds, but He wants us to appreciate it and not just take it for granted. Sometimes I will give one of my books to someone, and I am amazed at how people won’t even acknowledge or say “Thank You.” I read it I enjoyed it. Some people don’t even value it enough to read it. I guess that shouldn’t be so surprising because we often do God the same way. We want to take it and then we are on our merry way. Scripture tells us that the Lord “inhabits the praises of His people.” When we fail to acknowledge His gift, He might not be so quick to answer the next time. If we pray, “Oh Lord my name is Jimmy. Gimme all you can gimme.” He wants to give us exceedingly abundantly above all we ask or think,” (Ephesians 3:20), but we limit His hand when we fail to express our thanksgiving and show appreciation for His gifts.
CONCLUSION: Let’s remember these three things this week. God wants us to live in His sufficiency more than we want to believe it. We need to take the scripture and reprogram our thinking. We need to be consistent in our actions over the long haul. Not sporadic just when we ‘feel like it.’ And third we need to tell Him that we appreciate all He is doing for us and not take it for granted.
Let us Pray:
