Christ our Supply
Vicky Moots
Phil. 4:19: “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” We know that Paul’s God was a very personal God to him because he uses the personal pronoun “my.” He calls God, “my God.” David spoke something very similar to this in Ps. 23:1: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want [lack].” They both had a personal relationship with God and depended upon Him to meet all of their needs. We, too, can have that same personal relationship with Him through salvation.
Next, Paul states that God “shall” supply all your needs. He did not say “maybe” or “perhaps” He might, but that He “shall” supply. It is a father’s responsibility to supply the needs of his children. When we are born again, then God becomes our Father, and we can trust Him to take care of us. We should have the same confidence that our needs will be met that Paul and David had.
Paul then makes it clear that God shall supply “all” of our needs, not just a part of them. Nothing shall be lacking. Notice that he did not say that He would supply our “wants” or satisfy our “greed,” but that He would supply our “need.” He knows exactly what we need both physically and spiritually. Our natural needs are important, but not as important as our spiritual needs.
A father would be expected to provide clothing, food, shelter and comfort. Our spiritual needs for those things have already been provided for us by our Heavenly Father, for He knows what we have need of. For clothing, He has given us His righteousness; for food, we can feast on the Bread from heaven and the sincere milk of the Word; for shelter, we can hide under the shadow of His wings and in the cleft of the Rock; and for comfort, we can lean on His everlasting arms.
As His children, we have the privilege and the right to come to Him at any time and ask for what we need. In Matt. 7:7-11 Jesus encourages us to come to the Father regarding our needs: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?”
An earthly father may not always have the resources to give his children everything that they need, but our Heavenly Father has unlimited riches in His storehouse. He is willing and able to supply our need and to “do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).
Paul declared in the last part of Phil. 4:19 that God would supply all our need “according to” His riches in glory. He did not say “out of His riches.” “Out of” means to give “a portion of” His riches, whereas “according to” means to give “in the same proportion as” His riches. If a millionaire gave you $1,000, it would only be a small portion of his riches. It would not be “according to” His riches. God’s riches are unlimited, so if He supplies our need “according to” His riches, then that means that He will keep on giving as long as we keep on asking, and the supply will never run out.
Sometimes we do not know what we need, but He will always answer according to His will. He knows what is best for us. Some of the greatest blessings that we receive come in a package marked “trials and tribulations.”
Paul concludes this verse by stating that our needs will be met “by Christ Jesus.” They are not met according to or by our works but by Christ Himself and paid for in full on Calvary. If Christ is all we have, then we have all we need.
