“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” – Phil. 4:19
Yesterday I mentioned what a great help this verse has been to me over the last 53 years as a preacher. Today I want to mention something we all need to remember. Not long after the incident I mentioned yesterday I quoted this verse during  a sermon. After the service a lady came up to me and said, “You misquoted that verse”. I responded by saying, “No I didn’t” and proceeded to quote it again. Then she said, “You did it again”. When I asked how, she replied, “You said ‘needs’, but the verse says ‘need'”. Finally I got the picture she was trying to make. Her point was that God supplies our “need” when it is needed not before. In other words, God doesn’t supply all the needs we will ever have at one time. He supplies what we need as the need arises.

Now you might think that she was nit-picking, but she was actually making a good point. As you know, we tend to want what we think we will need in the future right now. But Jesus taught us to pray for our “daily bread”, not our monthly supply. We are to live one day at a time and trust God for what we need. We worry because we have doubts about the future, whether or not our needs will be supplied. If we truly believed this verse our worries would vanish and we would be at peace.

An old song says, “I don’t worry about tomorrow. I just live from day to day”. That’s a good song, but singing it and living it are two different things. Anyone can sing the words, but it takes faith to actually practice what we sing. If our faith was strong we would rest in calm assurance that God will keep His promise and meet our need – at the moment of need. As much as we crave contentment we will never have it until we come to that conclusion. So as you think about your greatest need today it might not be what you think. It just might be that what you need most is faith – the faith to believe that God will meet your need. The good news is, this is something you can do something about – “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” ( Rom. 10:17). I hope our verse today will be used for that very thing. I pray you will find peace in this precious promise. – HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

“He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. And he brought him to Jesus…” – John 1:41-42
“Philip findeth Nathanael, and saith unto him, We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”.- John 1:45
“….ye shall be witnesses unto me…” – Acts 1:8

“I didn’t know——- !”. I could add 1001 qualifiers to that statement and still not cover all the things that I didn’t know before becoming a Christian. But now, although still ignorant of a lot of things, I now know the answers to the most important questions in life. I owe that to the fact that someone invited me to church where I heard the gospel.

As a boy I suspected that there might be a God. I heard people mention Him and I could see His handiwork in the stars. Reason told me that people like my mother were not liars and that the universe must have had a designer and creator, but as to who it was I didn’t have a clue. I had never read the Bible, nor attended church. The closest  thing I had to a knowledge of God was listening to the closing hymn on the Grand Old Opry.

What I did know was that something was missing. I also quickly learned that I couldn’t find any real satisfaction, and that I kept making life more difficult for myself and others. The harder I tried the more I failed and the more out of control I became. After I started drinking at fourteen it got worse. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t know if anything could be done. The questions kept piling up, but the answers I could not find. Churches were everywhere and I sometimes wondered what those folks did, but I didn’t ask and they didn’t tell me. Looking back I am amazed that there could be so many churches and so little concern for a freckled face little boy. However, I have to say it wasn’t all their fault. I doubt that I would have listened even if they had told me. I figured they were as confused as I was – only in a different way.

Finally when I was 24 a friend invited me to church where I heard the gospel and was saved, and my life was changed. I mention this because I suspect you know someone that is where I was. It might be a friend, neighbor, coworker, classmate, or a relative and a simple invitation to church might result in them being saved. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar, etc. for God to use you. Just show them you care by doing whatever you can. If we do that God will bless our effort. Let God use you to make a difference in someone’s life. It could be the difference between heaven and hell. – HDS

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346

The word neighbor brings to mind a lot of memories. During the course of my life I’ve had all kinds of neighbors – good and bad, helpful and unkind, noisy and quite, religious and non-religious, etc. But, while they were all different, there was one thing I had in common with all of them. My blessed Lord has commanded me to love them. I don’t know what kind of neighbors you have but I do know that God expects you to love them.

J. R. Miller wrote, “Love to our neighbor seems at first an easy lesson to learn. But when we begin to study it, it grows harder. There is more of the lesson than we thought. We like to pick our neighbors, and we are sure to choose people who are congenial.
How to love our neighbor is taught in the parable. It is easy to have a sort of universal love – a love for everybody, a love we can exercise in our quiet home, looking at people in the distance, but not coming near to anyone. It is not just the same, however, when we go down among the people, and find our neighbor in some disagreeable person we cannot like, but waiting for our help, or in some enemy in need. The Good Samaritan found his neighbor in a hated Jew bleeding by the wayside. He had to get down in the dust and stanch his wounds, and then carry the man to an inn and pay the bills. It often costs a great deal to love a neighbor. The lesson is written out in full at the close: ‘Go, and do thou likewise.’” -HDS

David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
5801 FM 1960 E
Humble, TX. 77346