“But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
We need to set something straight in the beginning about the meaning of this text. Paul did not write: “But my God shall supply all your wants…” The Bible nowhere promises that God will give us all that we want. In Psalm 23:1, David wrote: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This verse was misquoted by a young boy when he said: “The Lord is my shepherd, He’s all I want.” It was misquoted but I think that it was really understood by the boy. I think that it means, among other things, that God simplifies our wants. I know that He has simplified mine, and I know some fine Christians who know about this as well. We have a God who can supply our needs out of His great “riches in glory.” This is not written to make us selfish, but to make us humbly accept our dependence on God/Jesus to meet our greatest needs. We think that our greatest needs are physical, but they are not. I am not intimating that God does not meet physical needs, but that these are not all of the greatest needs that He meets. Let’s look at some of the needs that we have that come from God’s great “riches in glory.” One need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is spiritual. You have read this quote from me before, and you are about to read it again, because it tells a great truth: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in every person that only God can fill.” (This is loosely quoted from Martin Buber.) A person’s life is not complete until he or she has his or her spiritual needs met by Jesus Christ. This need is so great in human beings that they will attempt to fill that vacuum with all kinds of things that will not fill it. Drugs can’t fill that vacuum. Romanic love cannot fill that vacuum. I am certainly not against romantic love, but it can’t meet our innermost spiritual needs. A good job with good pay cannot meet that need. This is why Jesus told the rich young man who asked how he could have eternal life to sell all that he had, give it to the poor, and follow Him. He knew that the young man was trying to fill his God-shaped vacuum with his possessions. He couldn’t do it. Jesus knew that his greatest need was spiritual and that all of his physical possessions could not fill that need. Another need that only Jesus can meet in our lives out of “God’s riches in glory” is emotional. Our lives are filled with all sorts of emotional needs. Our emotional needs usually reflect our need for acceptance and love. One of the worst things that can happen to us in life is to feel that others have rejected us, or that we are not acceptable to other people. Jesus can fill that vacuum for us. It is Jesus who makes us aware that we can be acceptable to God. My main concern is that there are many people who do not believe that God will forgive them and accept them into His kingdom. Let me tell you that if you have no other friend, God wants to be your friend, and all He asks of you is allow Him into your life. I guess that we will always have emotional needs, but I know that Jesus has helped me emotionally all of these years that I have served Him. After all, it was Jesus who said: “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest…” As always, I can’t cover everything on this topic in one post, but I can encourage you to accept the fact for your life that God is interested in your life and wants to meet all of your needs whatever they are. If this was not true, God would not have included it in scripture. You might be an unbeliever. I am simply asking you to throw all caution to the wind, confess your sins and ask Jesus into your life and let Him go to work in your life supplying your needs. You might be a troubled believer. There are many troubled believers out there and you need to reclaim that promise that God has made to “supply all your need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus.” It’s all there for you – go for it. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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