Jehovah Jireh NoG4

This is a name for God that occurs only once in our Bible. So what is the characteristic of God that is being reveled in this name? Jehovah Jireh, means the Lord will Provide. Looking at the story were this name occurs in Genesis 22:14 but to get an understanding of what caused this name for God to be reveled we need to look back at the preceding verses starting in verse 1. 

Genesis 22:1  And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.  And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off. And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together. And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.  And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.  And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.  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.  And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.  And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the LORD it shall be seen. 

Looking at Abraham in this story we have to understand that he had received a promise from God years before about how he would receive a son and through that son Abraham’s descendants would form a great nation and through them all people would be blessed. Abraham knew that if Isaac was killed, then God would have to work another miracle to fulfill his promise. 

Now not having kids I don’t think I fully understand what he was going through, but I do have loved ones, I couldn’t imagine God coming to me one day and telling me to take them and kill them, I’m not sure how I would respond. But Abraham knowing full well that God had his best interest at heart and knowing that God would keep his promise made the provisions and began the journey. 

Now Isaac wasn’t a little kid in verse seven it says he carried the wood for the offering and then asked Abraham about were the sacrifice was. When I read this I can see Isaac burdened with this heavy load of wood walking up the hill alongside his father and it slowly starts to dawn on him that they don’t have an animal to sacrifice, so what else is there other than him. 

Does he try to run away or fight back? We know Abraham was old at this point from other stories, I feel Isaac could have gotten away if he had wanted to, but did he? No he simply walked next to his father. This to me shows the kind of trust he had in his father. Isaac knew that Abraham would only do what is best for him. 

Do we have this kind of faith in our heavenly father? If we are supposed to do something that is hard or uncomfortable for God, will we do it, will we make the sacrifices to accomplish Gods will? Abraham, knowing that God would not break his promise because God is always faithful, was prepared to do whatever God said so he built the alter and bound Isaac. 

We can’t be sure but I’ve heard some pastors say they think Abraham felt God would raise Isaac from the dead. So Abraham, even before God provided the ram caught in the thicket, knew that God was Jehovah Jireh. That was going to provide the way for his promise to be fulfilled.

There are all kinds of other stories in our Bible about how when people are faithful or even when they are not, God provides for their needs. Most of the stories we have from the Bible start with God taking care of the physical needs of his people, and then the spiritual needs. 

Mathew 15 starting at verse 32 tells about the four thousand people being fed and Jesus says he doesn’t want to send the people away without something to eat. 

Matthew 15:32  Then Jesus called his disciples unto him, and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they continue with me now three days, and have nothing to eat: and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way.  And his disciples say unto him, Whence should we have so much bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude?  And Jesus saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven, and a few little fishes.  And he commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground.  And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.  And they did all eat, and were filled: and they took up of the broken meat that was left seven baskets full. And they that did eat were four thousand men, beside women and children.

The people had been provided with spiritual nourishment over the last couple days, but Jesus also wanted to take care of the people and provide for them in a physical way. 

God provides for us in the spiritual way through his word, through our prayer time, and through talking and listening to other people talk about God. (Assuming they are people you can trust) I think I’ve said it before but we all need to be in our bibles on a daily basis, if you can’t read chapters everyday start with a couple of verse because even that mouthful of water could save you or cause you to grow closer to God. We need to have that time with God so he can function as our Jehovah Jireh and provide for the needs we have in our lives. 

In Bible times God did many miracles to provide for the peoples physical needs as we saw in the Abraham and Isaac story, but today we are called to care for one another. We are the hands and feet of God, thus it makes sense that if there is work to do then we should be the ones doing it. Now this does not mean that God can't or won't perform miracles today, but God has chosen to primarily act through his people. 

If we see someone in need, be it a person needing food or loss of job causing them to fall behind on rent payments, we are called by God to be that helping hand to people and to care for people in need. An easy example is if you have enough food for your family and you see people around you who don’t then you should make an effort to give them something. Jesus tells us to take care of the widows and orphans. This is not a suggestion but a command. 

Our faith is not something to be practiced and shown just in a church building. When we follow Jesus it is not about the building, it is not about the songs, but it is about having that relationship with God and doing what he calls us to do. We are supposed to be in the world spreading the good news of Christ; we cannot spread that news without getting our hands a little dirty. 

I am not good at going up to people and sharing Christ, it makes me uncomfortable but that is what we are supposed to be doing. By reaching out to people in need we show them that someone cares for them; that someone is willing to take the time and make the sacrifice to care for them, thus they come to realize how much of difference faith in God makes. People who are non-believers, if they can see what a difference God makes in your life then they can become open to you sharing the gospel with them. 

So our Jehovah Jireh is providing for us. In this case he is providing that opening for you to share His love with a person. So by us doing Gods will and helping people in need then he can receive the glory that he is due and the person can come to have a relationship with God. 

God won’t provide everything we think we need. But God will provide everything we need. If we cannot afford food for a time then God is testing us and there is a lesson there. Or it could be God is trying to provide a way for us to take the next step. Meaning maybe God wants us to find a new line of work or move someplace and us, as humans we don’t like to change if what we have is good enough. Maybe God is trying to nudge us in another direction so we can accomplish his will then he will provide for us to be able to complete his task. 

Our Jehovah Jireh more often then not today works to provide for us in ways that don’t scream miracle. What I mean is when we talked about Jesus provided food for the thousands of people that was a big time miracle. He turned a small amount of food into a large amount for the people. I have never seen God work that way but God does work to provide for us.

A great example from my own life was when we were making preparations to come here and were discussing how much plane tickets and visas cost and we realized that we were going to be very close to not being able to come when we were planning. We filled our income tax, and then we discovered that we were entitled to more of a refund then we thought. It turns out that refund was just about the perfect amount to cover our visas. To me this is one way that God has provided for us because if it wasn’t because of that one little thing then we wouldn’t have been able to come when we did because we would have had to convince people to support us and send us money so we could come. God provided for the need, at the same time he was teaching us to rely on him for our needs and he can fulfill those in unexpected ways. 

In bible times God worked through many miracles to provide for the physical needs of his people so that would come to rely him as he was Jehovah Jireh. Today God chooses to use his people to care for the physical needs of the people so he provides for some people to have more then they need so they learn to care for people just like God cares for us, other people maybe lacking so that they can learn something as well. 

God provides opportunities for us to grow, and also to show that God is not to be contained in a church building. It seemed to me that doing this study the biggest thing to take away from this name of God is that God provides for us so that we can show other people him. In order to show other people God, we need to get outside of the church and meet the people were they are, show them that God and us as Gods representatives care for them.  God has provided the way for all people to be saved through Jesus but also as our Jehovah Jireh has provided a way for us to do the work of bringing people to Christ.