“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
