It’s so easy to take a verse—no matter how beautiful—out of context. You open the Bible at a certain spot, your eyes fall on a single verse, and suddenly you know: this is “my” verse. This just happened to me—I was looking for something, and voilà, my eyes caught these words from Paul: “My God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus” (Phil 4:19). Wow. It’s almost like receiving a blank cheque where you can fill in the amount yourself.
Hold on! If you read closely, you’ll see that Paul is thanking the church in Philippi for supporting him in his work as a preacher of the gospel. The promise is that God will provide all we need to do God’s will. As Jesus also teaches in the Sermon on the Mount: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33). Philippians 4:19 actually emphasises that God meets all our needs by giving us Jesus Christ. And, as we follow Jesus’ command to become fellow workers of the gospel, we discover that God provides everything we need for this purpose.
John Newton, the 18th-century theologian, put it well: “Everything is needful that He sends; nothing can be needful that He withholds.” In other words, trusting in God means knowing that if God withholds something, it’s for our good, and if He gives something, it’s also for our good. What we think we need is so small compared to the riches God truly wants to give us!
PRAYER: Like Paul, I say, “To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever! Amen” (Phil 4:20).
MUSIC:
We listen to the Landesjugendchor Südtirol’s rendition of Benedicamus Domino by Brad Printz.