By D.Brandt Berg
The Lord returns and rewards and compensates any sacrifices you make for others in trying to help them. If we are willing to obey and willing to do His will and carry on His work, He never fails. He has never failed. As Martin Luther said when somebody complained that he was taking too many people into his home—and he had about 25 people living with him then—“Never fear. With every additional mouth, God will supply.” He not only supplies, but He abundantly supplies. He lavishes on us many blessings and good grace as we follow His example in living simply and sharing what we have with others.
The Lord has blessed and increased it as our bread was broken. It has increased, and God has been with us and kept us, protected us, and supplied every need. He once commanded us in a prophecy to “enlarge our tents and to lengthen our cords and to strengthen the stakes,” for He was going to “increase us and cause us to be spread abroad throughout the land.” Surely He has fulfilled that prophecy! It has come about by being kind to a few. The Lord has been kind to us in return and caused many others to be kind to us and to care for us and our needs as we have endeavored to bring happiness to others.
I want you to remember that you can never outgive God. When the great David Livingstone, the pioneer missionary to Africa, was asked by the newspaper man, “Hasn’t it been a terrible sacrifice for you to leave England to come to this land among strangers, enduring hardships and privations and malaria and all of these things?” David Livingstone said, “I have enjoyed life. I have been happy, I have been healthy, I have done a great work for the Lord, and I have never made a sacrifice!” What he was saying was that he couldn’t possibly sacrifice for the Lord. It was impossible to outgive God! The more you give, the more He gives back in return.
Who would have even dreamed that the dreams which we have had in the past would now be so marvelously and abundantly fulfilled, both in our household of faith and our missionaries spread abroad throughout the land? But now here we are, and we can sometimes hardly believe it. We’ve turned to each other and we’ve said, “Are we dreaming or are we really here? Are we here far across the sea in these strange lands of Europe surveying the need, talking to the young people, seeing the tremendous opportunities? It’s all like a dream!” And knowing that God is going to do the same here that He has done throughout North America!
It has been due to your prayers and your faith and your sacrifice, if you want to call it that, but you’re giving to God, and you’ll never be able to outgive Him, because the Lord gives back abundantly in return. The Lord did that for us when we made our last little sacrifice—what we thought was a sacrifice. We gave up our little home on wheels. It was only 26 feet long and 8 feet wide, but it was home, our little rolling tent. Yet God asked us even to give that up, that we might go out as Abraham did, from our own land and from our own country into another land amongst strangers which He promised to him.
God’s entrance exams
I’ve almost always found that the Lord allows the most severe test at the very beginning. I’ve found that God usually gives me the most severe test, allows the Enemy to tempt and test me the worst, just as I’m considering or about to begin a new task or new project for Him. We have the most difficult times and the most difficult trials and the most severe tests to see if we’re really going to go through with it, live or die, sink or swim. It’s to see whether you really mean business, whether you’re going to trust Him and whether you have what it takes to see it through. Usually, if you pass those first severe, hard tests, the Lord stamps your passport with His stamp of approval.
After that initial testing, it’s not really as hard as we were afraid it was going to be. As Mark Twain said, “I’m an old man and I’ve had many troubles, most of which never happened!” Most of the things that we fear, most of the things that we worry about, most of the problems that we thought we were going to encounter never even happened. God didn’t let them happen. But the Lord allowed us to think they might happen and to worry about them a little bit and be willing to go ahead thinking that it’s possible that they might happen, to see if we were willing to go at any cost, pay any price, make any sacrifice in order to obey Him.
“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave, but one.” I’m afraid most of us are cowards, because most of us seem to have to die a thousand deaths before the one real one. We think we’re going to die, and we go through all the hell and the agony of dying these deaths before they even happen. Worry can kill you. “Fear hath torment,” His Word says, and lack of faith is a terrible, frightening thing.1
You see, if the Devil can scare you out before you begin, then you’ll never get started and you’ll never accomplish what God wants you to do. So for God’s sake and the sake of others and your own sake, don’t let the Devil frighten you or bluff you out of what the Lord wants you to do before you even get started. That’s when he attacks you the worst, and that’s when the Lord allows him to, because the Lord is testing you to see if you really mean business and to see if you’re willing to even die trying.
If you can get started, if you can get over that hump, then you can usually make the rest of the journey! None of the other trials ever seem as great as those in the beginning. Isn’t that what you’ve usually found? Haven’t you had greater strength or greater victory as you went along, even though perhaps the trials in some ways might have been more severe and bigger problems? They were bigger trials, greater tests, but you were much stronger to meet them, and they were not nearly as difficult to overcome as those little trials in the beginning. How true that is. Praise the Lord!
Little miracles
I’ll never forget one night I ran with the suitcases a long distance. I thought the train was about to pull out, and I’d prayed that the Lord would stop the train until I got on it. My faith that God was going to do it apparently wasn’t as strong as it should have been, but He did it. He stopped the train and it didn’t leave, and we sat there on the train after I got on, huffing and puffing and gasping for breath, thinking the train was due to pull out.
We sat there waiting and waiting and waiting for the train to leave. I wondered why in the world the train wouldn’t go after it was already way late, and here I’d been afraid it was going to pull out without me. All of a sudden it came to me. “You prayed for Me to stop the train, and you haven’t prayed that it would go again!” I said, “Okay, Lord. I’m on it. Forgive me, Lord. Let it go now.” And right away the train started. You tell me God can’t do miracles? Some of you may think it was just an accident, but I know it was the Lord. God has done so many little miracles like that for us, besides the big ones.
It’s the little things God does that are wonderful. Of course God takes care of the big things that have to be done, but the little tiny thoughtful acts of the Lord—to find a market that’s open, to find a bathroom scale, to find that your bags weigh just the right amount when you’re traveling—are so wonderful. There’s nothing too small for the Lord or too hard for Him. He’s concerned about every little thing!
Why do we worry? Why do we fret? God’s going to take care of every little detail. Each time I thought, “Maybe this is it. Maybe we just can’t make it. Surely this is going to be the door that’s going to be closed; this is going to be the impossible situation. Lord, You brought us this far, but here’s where we can’t make it any further; it’s impossible.”
We have seen one miracle after another, one fleece after another that the Lord has honored. Time and again, the Lord did the miracle. I wonder how many times you’ve put out a condition for the Lord to meet, kind of hoping that maybe He wouldn’t do it so you wouldn’t have to do it. Then the Lord just knocked the props out from under you and jerked the rug out from under you. He took away all your excuses and did all the miracles, so that the decision still had to be up to you. Then you had no excuses for not going on with something the Lord showed you, because He’d opened the door, He’d provided the way, and He’d made everything possible! That’s exactly the way the Lord worked for us. In every little thing, it was just miracle after miracle after miracle.
Lift up holy hands unto the Lord.2 Clap your hands unto the Lord, all ye people!3 Lift up your hands unto the Lord; lift up your voices unto the Lord, all ye lands. For the Lord, He is good. He is God, and it is He that has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.4 Hallelujah!
We’re nothing, but God has increased us and strengthened us and prospered us and given us many souls. Nothing is impossible with God, and all things are possible to him that believeth.5 God is a God of miracles, so let’s thank Him for it!
Originally published October 1970. Adapted and republished May 2014.
Read by Jon Marc.
1 1 John 4:18.
2 Psalm 134:2.
3 Psalm 47:1.
4 Psalm 100:3.
5 Luke 1:37; Mark 9:23.
The Lord returns and rewards and compensates any sacrifices you make for others in trying to help them. If we are willing to obey and willing to do His will and carry on His work, He never fails. He has never failed. As Martin Luther said when somebody complained that he was taking too many people into his home—and he had about 25 people living with him then—“Never fear. With every additional mouth, God will supply.” He not only supplies, but He abundantly supplies. He lavishes on us many blessings and good grace as we follow His example in living simply and sharing what we have with others.
The Lord has blessed and increased it as our bread was broken. It has increased, and God has been with us and kept us, protected us, and supplied every need. He once commanded us in a prophecy to “enlarge our tents and to lengthen our cords and to strengthen the stakes,” for He was going to “increase us and cause us to be spread abroad throughout the land.” Surely He has fulfilled that prophecy! It has come about by being kind to a few. The Lord has been kind to us in return and caused many others to be kind to us and to care for us and our needs as we have endeavored to bring happiness to others.
I want you to remember that you can never outgive God. When the great David Livingstone, the pioneer missionary to Africa, was asked by the newspaper man, “Hasn’t it been a terrible sacrifice for you to leave England to come to this land among strangers, enduring hardships and privations and malaria and all of these things?” David Livingstone said, “I have enjoyed life. I have been happy, I have been healthy, I have done a great work for the Lord, and I have never made a sacrifice!” What he was saying was that he couldn’t possibly sacrifice for the Lord. It was impossible to outgive God! The more you give, the more He gives back in return.
Who would have even dreamed that the dreams which we have had in the past would now be so marvelously and abundantly fulfilled, both in our household of faith and our missionaries spread abroad throughout the land? But now here we are, and we can sometimes hardly believe it. We’ve turned to each other and we’ve said, “Are we dreaming or are we really here? Are we here far across the sea in these strange lands of Europe surveying the need, talking to the young people, seeing the tremendous opportunities? It’s all like a dream!” And knowing that God is going to do the same here that He has done throughout North America!
It has been due to your prayers and your faith and your sacrifice, if you want to call it that, but you’re giving to God, and you’ll never be able to outgive Him, because the Lord gives back abundantly in return. The Lord did that for us when we made our last little sacrifice—what we thought was a sacrifice. We gave up our little home on wheels. It was only 26 feet long and 8 feet wide, but it was home, our little rolling tent. Yet God asked us even to give that up, that we might go out as Abraham did, from our own land and from our own country into another land amongst strangers which He promised to him.
God’s entrance exams
I’ve almost always found that the Lord allows the most severe test at the very beginning. I’ve found that God usually gives me the most severe test, allows the Enemy to tempt and test me the worst, just as I’m considering or about to begin a new task or new project for Him. We have the most difficult times and the most difficult trials and the most severe tests to see if we’re really going to go through with it, live or die, sink or swim. It’s to see whether you really mean business, whether you’re going to trust Him and whether you have what it takes to see it through. Usually, if you pass those first severe, hard tests, the Lord stamps your passport with His stamp of approval.
After that initial testing, it’s not really as hard as we were afraid it was going to be. As Mark Twain said, “I’m an old man and I’ve had many troubles, most of which never happened!” Most of the things that we fear, most of the things that we worry about, most of the problems that we thought we were going to encounter never even happened. God didn’t let them happen. But the Lord allowed us to think they might happen and to worry about them a little bit and be willing to go ahead thinking that it’s possible that they might happen, to see if we were willing to go at any cost, pay any price, make any sacrifice in order to obey Him.
“The coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave, but one.” I’m afraid most of us are cowards, because most of us seem to have to die a thousand deaths before the one real one. We think we’re going to die, and we go through all the hell and the agony of dying these deaths before they even happen. Worry can kill you. “Fear hath torment,” His Word says, and lack of faith is a terrible, frightening thing.1
You see, if the Devil can scare you out before you begin, then you’ll never get started and you’ll never accomplish what God wants you to do. So for God’s sake and the sake of others and your own sake, don’t let the Devil frighten you or bluff you out of what the Lord wants you to do before you even get started. That’s when he attacks you the worst, and that’s when the Lord allows him to, because the Lord is testing you to see if you really mean business and to see if you’re willing to even die trying.
If you can get started, if you can get over that hump, then you can usually make the rest of the journey! None of the other trials ever seem as great as those in the beginning. Isn’t that what you’ve usually found? Haven’t you had greater strength or greater victory as you went along, even though perhaps the trials in some ways might have been more severe and bigger problems? They were bigger trials, greater tests, but you were much stronger to meet them, and they were not nearly as difficult to overcome as those little trials in the beginning. How true that is. Praise the Lord!
Little miracles
I’ll never forget one night I ran with the suitcases a long distance. I thought the train was about to pull out, and I’d prayed that the Lord would stop the train until I got on it. My faith that God was going to do it apparently wasn’t as strong as it should have been, but He did it. He stopped the train and it didn’t leave, and we sat there on the train after I got on, huffing and puffing and gasping for breath, thinking the train was due to pull out.
We sat there waiting and waiting and waiting for the train to leave. I wondered why in the world the train wouldn’t go after it was already way late, and here I’d been afraid it was going to pull out without me. All of a sudden it came to me. “You prayed for Me to stop the train, and you haven’t prayed that it would go again!” I said, “Okay, Lord. I’m on it. Forgive me, Lord. Let it go now.” And right away the train started. You tell me God can’t do miracles? Some of you may think it was just an accident, but I know it was the Lord. God has done so many little miracles like that for us, besides the big ones.
It’s the little things God does that are wonderful. Of course God takes care of the big things that have to be done, but the little tiny thoughtful acts of the Lord—to find a market that’s open, to find a bathroom scale, to find that your bags weigh just the right amount when you’re traveling—are so wonderful. There’s nothing too small for the Lord or too hard for Him. He’s concerned about every little thing!
Why do we worry? Why do we fret? God’s going to take care of every little detail. Each time I thought, “Maybe this is it. Maybe we just can’t make it. Surely this is going to be the door that’s going to be closed; this is going to be the impossible situation. Lord, You brought us this far, but here’s where we can’t make it any further; it’s impossible.”
We have seen one miracle after another, one fleece after another that the Lord has honored. Time and again, the Lord did the miracle. I wonder how many times you’ve put out a condition for the Lord to meet, kind of hoping that maybe He wouldn’t do it so you wouldn’t have to do it. Then the Lord just knocked the props out from under you and jerked the rug out from under you. He took away all your excuses and did all the miracles, so that the decision still had to be up to you. Then you had no excuses for not going on with something the Lord showed you, because He’d opened the door, He’d provided the way, and He’d made everything possible! That’s exactly the way the Lord worked for us. In every little thing, it was just miracle after miracle after miracle.
Lift up holy hands unto the Lord.2 Clap your hands unto the Lord, all ye people!3 Lift up your hands unto the Lord; lift up your voices unto the Lord, all ye lands. For the Lord, He is good. He is God, and it is He that has made us and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.4 Hallelujah!
We’re nothing, but God has increased us and strengthened us and prospered us and given us many souls. Nothing is impossible with God, and all things are possible to him that believeth.5 God is a God of miracles, so let’s thank Him for it!
Originally published October 1970. Adapted and republished May 2014.
Read by Jon Marc.
1 1 John 4:18.
2 Psalm 134:2.
3 Psalm 47:1.
4 Psalm 100:3.
5 Luke 1:37; Mark 9:23.
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