If we think about poverty we typically think:

• no money
• no clean water
• no food/starvation
• no shelter/no home
• displaced/refugee
• unwanted/unloved/uncared for/orphaned
• without hope of a future

This is abject poverty. It is situational poverty.

There is a poverty worse than all these…

It is the self-reliant and self-content person, who thinks he has no-need of God. This is a spiritual poverty and it leads to an eternity spent, permanently separated from God, in hell.

No-one needs to live with this kind of poverty because the greatest of all riches comes to us when we realize our need of Jesus.

Jesus gives Himself to us freely and completely. All we do is accept His free gift.  

Jesus makes us right with God and wealthy beyond measure.

And yet, so many people live without Him, thinking  I can do this on my own.  And still others haven’t even heard the good news about Jesus yet…They live poorer than the poorest people on the planet.

Some of the poorest are living on your street and on my street. We have the awesome job of telling them the good news…

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For many of us, it would radically change the way we think, talk, tweet, text, behave… if we knew (remembered) God listens to, knows, and watches, everything. Everything!

I am constantly reminded of this because I can walk around my house and see answers to prayers everywhere. Some prayers, barely even prayed. Sometimes barely a thought, not even a prayer, just a thought, but God answered.

Example:

I have the great privilege of having some middle schoolers in my neighborhood. Many of them have made decisions for Jesus in the last six months.

A few weeks ago after our Sunday morning services, I was getting lunch for my own family and five of the middle schoolers turned up at my front door. They were all hungry, so they ate lunch with us. And a middle schooler can eat.

Just a day earlier, Saturday, I had shopped for everything I normally need for my kids school lunches for the coming week. My own kids are elementary age. The middle schoolers, they ate it all.

As I was cleaning up, I was talking to God about a whole lot of things and just happened to say,  Oh, God, they just ate all my bread for the week.

It wasn’t a complaint, or a prayer, but merely an observation, and it was immediately followed up with,  No big deal. I can run out tomorrow and buy more. 

I didn’t give it another thought.

Back at Church that night, a friend came running at me, excited and smiling ear to ear. She started saying she had had a dream the night before. In the dream she saw me standing praying and asking God for bread.

Bread!  Of all things. Then she put $20 in my hand saying, This is for your bread.

My jaw dropped. I had just stood at my kitchen sink a few hours earlier saying, God, they just ate all my bread…

It wasn’t a prayer. I wasn’t even asking for anything. I was just making an observation. Merely an off-handed comment. I have a long time habit of having  conversations with God like that about everything.

The amazing thing is my friend had the dream before I had given my young middle schoolers lunch.

God’s provision was there before I needed it. Before I had even given my bread to make lunches, God knew and had made provision.

God hears, sees, and knows, everything, and when we are faithfully serving Him, His provision is there before we even need it.

We should trust Him a whole lot more than we do.

I’m teaching my kids to value what God values. BEWARE it’s opposite to what society teaches, but then so much of how God tells us to live and love is opposite to what the world says…

1. Give. Be generous with your smiles, words, time, money, toys, energy, love, respect and honor. No matter what you get from people, always willingly and cheerfully, give.

2. Love people.

3. Be quick to forgive and forget.

4. Pray for bullies, even if they hurt you. Bullies are just people who are hurting and need attention. The only way they know how to feel better about themselves is by hurting others. They need you to pray for them.

5. Don’t talk badly about people behind their back. It’s gossip and God hates it. Don’t be friends with people who gossip. They are a very bad influence.

6. You are strong hearted and brave so stick up for people who need you.

7. Don’t join the crowd because it’s cool and you want to be popular (peer pressure). Do right and don’t compromise for a second. A brave person will not compromise.

8. Don’t lie. God hates it. Lying won’t get you out of trouble. Lying brings trouble to a whole new level.

9. Tell the truth. Be honest. God loves it when we tell the truth. Sometimes it may hurt, but God works all things for good, you’ll see in the end.

10. Follow Jesus with everything you are. Trust Him. He is strong. When you trust Him you are not afraid of people because you know He is so much bigger.

11. Listen to what God says about you and let Him define you. No-one else.

12. Be confident because God loves you. Don’t have a wrong self-entitled confidence. That is pride. Pride will push your need for Jesus out of your life.

13. Be kind, gentle, faithful, loyal, patient, happy, self controlled, and do good to all people.

14. Make God’s Kingdom, your top priority.

15. God loves you more than you will ever know. Nothing can change that. He loves you. He always will. He does not get mad at you–even when you make silly mistakes or do bad things, He still loves you and is endlessly patient with you. He made you beautiful, wonderful, strong and brave. He made your personality and wired you to be you. So enjoy who you are because God loves you.