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Pondering the Master

The Mediate God

J.M. Diener

July 2025

A father giving a gift to a boy through his daughter | Generated by Envato AI ImageGen | Used by Permission.

A father giving a gift to a boy through his daughter | Generated by Envato AI ImageGen | Used by Permission.

As we and some people around us are dealing with some financial shortfalls, I have been thinking about how God prefers to provide for us. We pray hard and we expect him to drop things out of the sky and intervene immediately;1 that is, directly, himself. And he has in the past, by raining manna on Israel, healing people spontaneously, and by living among us as a human being to save us from our sins.

And yet, when we look at the broad swath of Scripture, these instances of immediate intervention comprise a tiny minority of God’s actions. God, for some reason, generally prefers to act mediately;2 namely by employing, empowering, and encouraging his creation to do his bidding. This is especially true in his provision. The Bible says that God send the rain to both good and evil to provide for their needs (Mt. 5:45; Zec. 10:1; Lev. 26:4). He uses the earth to provide our food rather than making it materialize. Even when he worked miraculously, most of the time he did it through his prophets and apostles. Even today most of the healing miracle stories come from dedicated Christians crying out to God and laying their hands on those who are ill. Many spiritual needs are met through the ministrations of the saints to one another, as we pray for each other and encourage each other (see Eph. 5:18-21; 1Th. 5:11; Heb. 10:24-25). I have experienced the immediate presence of God but a few times in my life, but I have often experienced his mediate presence through my brothers and sisters. But especially when material needs are to be met, God provides by sending his servants to give of their possessions to provide for his saints.3 We become God’s hands (see Paul’s metaphor of the body in 1Co. 12), giving from the abundance that he has provided to clothe and help our needy brothers and sisters (see Jas. 2:14-17; Rom 12:13; Mat. 6:31-33).

God loves to work mediately, and I love it when he uses me as his hands. I can’t tell you how exciting it is to give to someone and see the delight that comes when their needs are met miraculously through the saints.

Is it God who gives? Yes, truly, it is he. Is it the saints who give? Yes, truly, it is they. Is it God who gives mediately through the saints? Amen, truly it is so!

Take some time to read the story of George Muller and see how God continuously provided for him and his orphans. Consider how often in your own life you’ve seen those instances of God providing for your needs and how often he used other humans to bring along just what you needed. God really likes to work together with us to bring about his will. How are you cooperating with him by being his medium of blessing to others?

  • 1

    The emphasis of the word here is not so much on the speed of the resolution, but on God reaching in and intervening all by himself. See multiple English language dictionaries quoted at “immediate”, The Free Dictionary  < https://www.thefreedictionary.com/immediate > (accessed 2025-07-29).

  • 2

    The emphasis here is someone acting through an agent (“mediator”) to get something done. See the adjectival form of the word at “mediate”, The Free Dictionary < https://www.thefreedictionary.com/mediate > (accessed 2025-07-29).

  • 3

    See Randy Alcorn, The Treasure Principle: Revised and Updated Version (Colorado Springs, Colorado : Multnomah, 2017) for more on this idea.

Churches that spend their money on bigger buildings, more technology, and private jets for the pastor, and neglect the needs of their members, are an affront to the gospel.If we only talk about how much we hate forms of socialism but never discuss biblical alternatives that address the problems socialism attempts to address, as one inner city pastor wrote to me, we “lose massive moral foundation from which to speak.”Imagine a nation where Christians didn’t use the force of government to impose unnecessary laws (temperance movement) on unbelievers or to create a theocracy by force, but loved their neighbors through truth (spreading the gospel) and mercy (meeting their needs). I dream of a country where Christians lead the nation in acts of mercy — loving and caring for our neighbors and enemies.

Phillip Holmes, "The Heart of Socialism: A Sympathetic Response to Advocates of Social Programs", Desiring God < http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-heart-of-socialism > (accessed 2016-03-17).