Here’s How God has Kept An Amazing Promise to Me Throughout My Life

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Over the years, I have had the privilege of seeing the Lord keep a very specific and wonderful promise to me. It has direct application for any Christian who wants to meet the pressing needs around them. It’s found in 2 Corinthians 9:8,

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.” (ESV)

Notice how emphatic this promise is: “all grace…all sufficiency…all things…all times…every good work.” What Paul is saying is that when we set out to do the good work God has called us to do, He will always provide absolutely everything that is needed to do it, no exceptions.

I have been a Christian for over fifty years now and have claimed this promise many, many times. Now I want to encourage you to do the good works God is calling you to do with the following examples of how God has kept this promise in my own life.

With each example, I’m going to repeat the promise for emphasis. Here’s the first:

I had worked my way through undergraduate school, and now I was praying about going on to seminary. But I had no funds, so I asked the Lord to provide enough money in advance for my first year.

One day my aunt called with this story: She said she woke up in the middle of the night with an overwhelming conviction that for some reason she needed to send me some money. In the morning, when her husband woke up and before she could say anything, he said, “Last night I dreamed that we should send Herb some money. I wonder what that’s all about.”

So they sent a large check that provided some of the the funds for my first year.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

In seminary, I sensed that I should send a friend of mine, whose name was Steve, some money. This was odd, because I myself was a poor student living on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. But I did. I sent Steve a check for what to me at the time was a whopping $25.00.

Steve was himself a student, getting his Ph.D. at Cambridge in philosophy. One day he received in the mail his annual apartment tax bill. (Yes, they tax apartments in England.) Unfortunately, he didn’t have the money to pay it. But immediately under the bill was my letter with the gift. When he converted it into British pounds, it came to exactly the amount of the apartment tax.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

The Weeds — yes, that was their real name — were homeless and Mrs. Weed had just given birth to a new baby. Parkland Memorial Hospital was about to discharge her onto the street with her newborn, her husband and another child.

I was still in seminary at this time, living in a one bedroom apartment. I took all four of them into that already cramped apartment until they could get on welfare and find an affordable apartment of their own. I took two weeks off from my studies to do this. When I finally got back to class, I discovered that the entire seminary had been praying for me.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

My first church of 50 people was desperately poor, so poor it couldn’t even afford to paint the exterior of the building, let alone make major repairs inside. Texas gulf coast humidity had turned the neglected white exterior green with mold. The eyesore was a very bad testimony to the community.

So I challenged the church to trust God to raise the funds to renovate the entire church. It was a seemingly impossible task for a congregation that struggled just to pay my salary. But we started praying.

At the same time, one of the members of the church, Jacqueline, had been taking meals to an elderly man on her block. When he died, he willed his entire estate to her and she gave a large donation to our church. Those funds formed a major portion of what was needed to restore our building.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

During that same pastorate, it became clear that the church, being as poor as it was, wasn’t going to be able to pay a salary Patti and I could live on. So I decided to start a side business cleaning windows.

God blessed “Reese Window Cleaning” and soon I was cleaning windows in over 100 businesses every two weeks, including an eight story bank in Galveston and all the Kroeger stores in the city of Houston. I got so busy, I wound up hiring an unemployed steel worker in my church to help.

I met my own needs and the needs of someone else. By doing so, I was, without realizing it, living what Paul taught in Acts 20:35 “By working hard in this way we must help the weak.”

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

During my second pastorate in Quincy, Illinois, located on the Mississippi River, our community went through a once-in-500-year flood. Six hundred homes were destroyed in our region.

As a pastor in the community, I felt that believers needed to do something. So I joined with other pastors in Quincy and formed an evangelical pastors fellowship and planned a fundraising concert. We invited some country western artists from Nashville to perform, but after paying our expenses–sadly, instead of donating their time and talent the artists insisted on being paid–we wound up raising a mere $1,100.

Our embarrassment turned to joy, however when a national Christian charity contacted us. They told us that people all over the country had been sending in money to help with the disaster and their organization needed boots on the ground to distribute it. They had heard about our group of pastors and our fundraiser and were wondering if we could distribute the money.

We told them we would be happy to hand out the money. So they sent our ministerial association a check in the amount of $500,000.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

A distant relative of mine was falsely accused of a serious crime. If convicted, they would spend many years in prison. No one else in our family could afford to help with legal fees.

But at the same time this happened, I received an inheritance and was able to provide the several thousand dollars needed to hire a suitable lawyer. The result was their exoneration.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Moving from my second pastorate in Quincy, Illinois, to my third pastorate near Denver, Colorado, meant we had the daunting task of purchasing a home in an expensive metropolitan area.

Our home in Quincy wasn’t selling and we had to purchase a home in Broomfield, a suburb of Denver, that was much smaller and cost twice as much. This meant we were maintaining two mortgages and a bridge loan for several months.

But our realtor in Broomfield didn’t charge us a commission and the bank we got our bridge loan from didn’t charge us any fees. And finally, after our original home had been on the market for seven months, someone in our new church gave us a check for $10,000 so we could lower the selling price of the home.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

At the time God called me to start New Commandment Men’s Ministries, we had no way of knowing how it was going to be funded, or whether I could support our family with it.

But what did happen was someone gave us a late model Toyota Camry with only 24,000 miles on it, the government lowered its tax rate (yes, lowered, my taxes), and Patti’s hourly salary dramatically increased.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

After starting New Commandment Men’s Ministries, the financial situation for the ministry was looking bleak and I was getting discouraged.

One day I was walking down the street in our community and a young boy came up to me.

“My dad saw you go by and wants me to give this to you,” he said.

Then he handed me a piece of paper. It was a check made out to New Commandment in the amount of $400.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

Stories like the one above of the Lord’s provision over the last 14 years for New Commandment Men’s Ministries are innumerable. But the latest goes like this:

This spring and summer, I’ve had a number of trips where sales of material failed to cover travel expenses, resulting in a near zero balance in our ministry account.

But recently I went to breakfast with a friend from church.

“I have something I want to give you,” he said. Then he handed me a check for $5,000.

“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.”

So how has God kept this promise to you? How has He made it possible for you to do every good work in your life? What current good work are you facing that you are still trusting God for?

This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org. 

 

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