If you’re a husband, then you’ve probably experienced the terror of your wife asking you to pick up something she needs from the grocery store. We all know that she has a specific brand, size, price, and color of the item that she requested and you had better get it right. To be fair, most of us as men don’t consider the amount of time and effort our wives put into preparing a meal for our families and therefore don’t understand the importance of getting what she asked for. However, most of us have experienced the tension of giving our wives something different than she asked for. It’s frustrating to ask for something and not receive what you asked for.

We’ve probably also been on the receiving end of this in our relationship with God as well. We are striving to be obedient to His call on our lives and in the meantime we ask Him to take care of our physical needs. Often, He does give us exactly what we’ve asked for as long as our motives are right in our requests. Maybe just as often though, He doesn’t give us what we’ve asked for.

There’s an interesting passage in 2 Corinthians where Paul is asking the Corinthian church to be cheerful and faithful in their giving to the saints in Jerusalem. He challenges them to “sow bountifully” (2 Corinthians 9:6) and then he gives them this assurance:

“And 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.”
2 Corinthians 9:8

Maybe it would seem appropriate that if God is asking us to give financially that he would return the favor by blessing us financially - and sometimes He does that. However, the greater promise here is that as we are obedient to God by living with generous hearts, He will make his grace abound to us so that we would have “all sufficiency” (read contentment). While we may hope for financial blessings (temporary), God lavishes on us spiritual blessings (eternal).

The result is that we become even more generous and joyful because no longer are we doing this through our own strength, but the grace and strength He provides us to live with true contentment no matter our circumstances. He sustains us with something far greater than a balanced checkbook and a solid financial future. It may seem impossible to have true contentment when life keeps throwing curveballs at you and it may seem frustrating when God does not give us what we ask Him for; especially when we think we need it. This is why Paul gives us the encouragement in Philippians 4:

“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:13

The truth is, if we have Christ, we have enough. He knows your needs (Matthew 6:8), He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7), and He is able to meet them (Matthew 6:33), but in our praying and searching for material provisions, let’s not miss the greater blessing of his grace enabling us to live with real contentment. It is only when we live with true contentment that we can live with true generosity anyway.

We’ve seen it over and over again: Christians with a desire to share their faith getting into heated debates with non-believers. Far too often, these debates are about everything besides the main issue of the gospel - Jesus Christ. There’s a question I’ve been thinking about that should cause us to rethink our evangelism: what would we accomplish if we “won” the last 5 debates we’ve had with unbelievers?

Think about the last conversation you’ve had with an unbeliever about spiritual things - what was the main subject of the discussion? If you had completely convinced them of your side of the argument, would they have been born again in that moment? Maybe the topic was important, but was it focused on the Jesus and the Gospel?

We have so much to learn from Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:1-21. One of the main parts of that passage that makes me rethink my evangelism tactics is verses 11-15:

“11 Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus made the issue about Himself and what it means to be born again. He could have discussed with Nicodemus the work of the Holy Spirit (it’s what Nicodemus inquired about in John 3:9), but He knew that Nicodemus could not understand those things unless he was first “born again.” Nicodemus first approached Jesus because he wanted to ask Jesus about the signs He was performing. Jesus could have gotten into a conversation about where He gets the power and authority for such signs, but He completely redirected the conversation to the issue of being born again. Why?

Jesus knew that the thing that Nicodemus needed before he could understand or believe anything else, was to believe in Him. This wasn’t about winning a debate, it was about winning a soul and debates don’t do that - the Holy Spirit through Gospel proclamation does.

So the next time your conversation with an unbeliever shifts to anything besides Jesus and the Gospel, bring it back to the main thing. Those other topics are highly important, but they are secondary. Furthermore, lost people will not understand spiritual matters until they are first born again - we can’t have spiritual conversations with spiritually dead people. They need the power of the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts to being them to life as the Gospel is proclaimed. In the words of Jesus, “unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).