Activating the Power of God’s Word

And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

THE SHUT UP, Devil! mobile app was my first major ministry project—and my first major lesson about God’s provision. When God began to speak to me about the concept, I had only recently launched the ministry and had next to nothing in my bank account. With the Lord’s direction I proceeded to get quotes for the cost of its development. The best estimate was in the thousands. Though I didn’t know where the money would come from, I felt strongly that I should proceed in faith.

Giving the OK to start the project was the easy part. Stepping out in faith is not so difficult when no initial payment is due. The worries begin when the bills start to come in. After a few months the development costs started to mount, and anxiety about how I would pay the bills started to consume my mind. I protested to God, “If you don’t provide by X date, I am quitting the ministry! I just can’t keep doing this!”

I know that I just revealed a lack of faith that is not exemplary, but God’s provision is. A couple of months after development began, I introduced the project to the people in some churches where I was speaking. I didn’t tell the congregations the exact amount I needed, but the collections they took up exactly covered the bills. Of course I was relieved!

Several months later the app was released, and since then it has helped tens of thousands of people overcome the threats and lies of the enemy. But ironically, well before the app had an impact on anyone else, it first helped to teach me an important lesson, a lesson it was crucial to learn at the start of the ministry: what God orders, He pays for.

Some have counted at least 169 verses in the Bible that describe the ways God promises to provide. Of these verses, perhaps the most popular is Paul’s words to the church at Philippi:

And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

—PHILIPPIANS 4:19

We must recognize that Paul wasn’t instituting a new promise here. Rather, he was standing on the age-old promise of God’s provision dating as far back as when Abraham named God “Jehovah Jireh,” which means “the Lord will provide.”

Given Paul’s situation, the Philippian believers surely took notice of his words. Paul was once a high-ranking member of the Jewish establishment: “a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin,” in fact (Phil. 3:5, NLT). Yet for the cause of Christ he was willing to walk away from his heritage and start over.

Though perhaps Paul started over with nothing, he didn’t remain with nothing. As he continued to serve Jesus, Paul experienced the faithfulness of God to meet his needs and boasted at times even to have more than enough (Phil. 4:18). In deconstructing Paul’s declaration of God’s provision, we can learn a great deal about how God intends to provide for us too.

Paul began his assurance not by generally referring to God, but by personalizing God as “my God.” By doing so, he essentially encouraged the people, “Look at my life. If there’s anyone who knows about the fear of not having food, water, or a place to live, it’s me! Yet here I am—content and joyful! The same God who takes care of me will also take care of you.” Here again, God shows no favoritism. Paul’s God is your God and my God, and He will fully provide for you and me just the same as He provided for Paul.

There is no wiggle room for doubt here. God won’t hold out on us; He won’t give to us partially and leave us needing more. No, Paul reveals the guarantee that the God who calls you knows the needs of your call. God is ready and able to supply the whole kit and caboodle, right down to the last cent. And often God will also leave some to spare as a blessing for your obedience.

A need is considered something that is essential to accomplish a certain purpose. Of course, to maintain life, we have certain needs, most obviously food, water, and shelter. Some other life needs are emotional, such as the needs for acceptance, love, and value. You will also have needs according to the vocation to which God has called you. To raise a family, for example, you must have the means to support your family. Or if God has called you to full-time ministry, you will have other definite needs that require fulfillment.

Here Paul assures that just as God has always done for His people, God will provide for your every need. But you must be careful not to confuse a need with a want. Wants are often luxuries, which would be nice to have but are not crucial to the mission. As we will learn below, if they are not harmful to your overall well-being and purpose, God delights in blessing you with your wants. But unlike a need, He doesn’t promise to provide them.

God doesn’t provide for your every need out of His riches but according to them. The difference is significant. If He provided out of His riches, it would indicate a supply that might eventually be depleted (even if it is a huge supply). And thus you might fear that God doesn’t have enough left for you. But fear not: God keeps no inventory on His provisions; they never run out. And He hasn’t given the answer to your financial need, miracle, or breakthrough to someone else.

God’s provision “according to His riches” also means that it is not according to anything of yours. That is, God supplies according to His mercy, grace, and unconditional love, not according to your perfect behavior. I know many people who believe they have lack in an area because God is upset with them about something. Know that the Bible promises that God holds no good thing back from His children (Ps. 84:11). He is not a Father who threatens, “Do this or else!” If provision were dependent on upholding some sort of law or living perfectly, we would all be vagabonds. Thankfully, God meets our needs according to the glory of who He is, not according to what we do, which is precisely why we can count on it.

Finally, Paul directs us to the signature on the check of the promise: “in Christ Jesus.” Jesus’s name is always the guarantor of any of God’s promises. To see if God has the “credit” to make such a guarantee, consider that He owns everything (Ps. 24:1)! The resources of heaven and earth are at His disposal, which means He is able to provide for you. But to see if God is willing, you need to look no further than Christ on the cross. God’s sacrifice of His only Son demonstrates the extreme lengths He is willing to go to provide what you need.

I remember another time when I was stressing over some personal bills that seemed to be accumulating with no end in sight. My mind went into overdrive, creating worrisome, hypothetical situations that nearly crippled me with fear and caused me to beg, “God, please provide!” Thankfully, not long into my rant, God spoke to me. “This isn’t your problem; it’s Mine,” the Lord assured. And then He directed me to the words of Jesus:

Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

—MATTHEW 6:25–26

More than anything else in creation, you and I are God’s priority because we are His children and He is our Father. And as a good Father, God is never delinquent in His fatherly responsibilities to provide.

As God revealed to me, your needs are not your problem! And you don’t have to beg or plead with Him to provide for them. If a thing is necessary for life or essential to something He has asked you to do, then God wants you to be assured of His promise to provide it. Your only responsibility in God’s provision is to look to Him above all things. As you keep your eyes on Him, He will keep His hand of provision on you (Matt. 6:33). No begging is necessary—only trust and obedience.

For whatever reason, some people are hostile to the idea that God wants to bless His people. Instead, they think that holiness and poverty go hand in hand. But this is a deception of the enemy! The devil loves for Christians to remain in financial struggle or to just get by because it keeps us focused only on ourselves.

God sometimes calls us into difficult situations, which He uses to shape us for the better. And we all know that He doesn’t always give us what we want. But we shouldn’t have a mind-set that God is withholding anything we need or that He wants us to remain in difficulty forever. No, all throughout the Bible we see that it is prosperity and well-being—not poverty and struggle—that God ultimately desires for His people. Read what God says:

This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth; you shall meditate on it day and night. . . . For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall be successful.

—JOSHUA 1:8

Happy are those . . . [whose] delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.

—PSALM 1:1–3

Great is the LORD, who delights in the welfare of his servant.

—PSALM 35:27

And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough of everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

—2 CORINTHIANS 9:8

Yes, these scriptures are clear that God not only promises to meet our needs, but that He also delights to bless us far and above what we need. And He does so for at least a couple of reasons.

When God called Abraham, He promised that He would establish a great nation out of him. He then promised to bless Abraham and this nation so that they would be a blessing to others (Gen. 12:2).

God blesses us for the same purpose—to be a blessing to others. He never blesses us so that we will hoard possessions. He doesn’t want us to hold onto His blessings with clenched hands, but to hold them lightly with open palms. And that is an important word picture to understand. Clenched hands can hold only so much, and they can’t continue to receive. But open palms allow gifts to continue to come in and go out, which makes you a flowing river of blessings. Through this posture, not only are your needs met, but also you get the joy of being part of God meeting the needs of other people.

To understand the purpose of prosperity, consider what God has done through America’s abundance. In less than two hundred years of independence, America rose to have incredible wealth. But its wealth wasn’t meant for materialism and greed. No, God had plans for the wealth of America as a funding source for the gospel around the world. And that is what happened.

Many of the most longstanding and recognizable international Christian institutions, such as Campus Crusade for Christ, Wycliffe Bible Translators, and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, were all originally financed as a result of Americans’ prosperity.¹ The surplus of blessed people is also largely responsible for the pioneering of Christian media networks, the largest of which now has the potential to reach hundreds of millions in every region of the world, every day.² Additionally, it is reported that Americans give more than $115 billion per year to religious groups, which contribute to church plants, discipleship, and mission work both at home and abroad.³ Certainly I don’t cite all of this to brag on America, but to demonstrate the positive effects of purposeful prosperity.

If you want the prosperity of God, you must show that you can handle it. And being a cheapskate isn’t going to do it! Begin by giving to others. As you give, God will be faithful to replenish. Yes, He will bless you to be a blessing.

When God spoke to Moses at the burning bush, He reminded him of His covenant to bring Israel to “their own fertile and spacious land . . . a land flowing with milk and honey” (Exod. 3:8, NLT). God’s desire for His people wasn’t just to meet their need for land, but to bless them with more than enough. A bit later God further explained His reasoning to Moses:

Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the LORD—the awesome power I will display for you.

—EXODUS 34:10, NLT

Part of the miracle power that God promised to display for His people was the power of His provision. God wanted other nations to marvel at and envy how much the God of Israel blessed His people so that in their amazement they might want to serve Him too.

Likewise, the blessings in your life should direct people to the God who provides those blessings. To be sure, people won’t be attracted to God by greediness, stinginess, or stress. No, people will see the God of your prosperity by the peace through which you live and the cheerfulness through which you give.

Perhaps you have heard the popular parable about the man stuck on his rooftop during a flood. After he prayed to God for help, a man in a rowboat came to offer to take him to safety. But the stranded man declined the offer by shouting back, “No, thanks. I believe God will save me.” After this a motorboat came by, but still the man declined to jump in for the same reason. Finally, a helicopter flew in, but again the stranded man refused to get on board, still holding to his belief that God would save him.

Unfortunately, the waters continued to rise and the stranded man drowned. When he got to heaven, he had the opportunity to discuss the situation with God. “I had faith in You, but You didn’t save me,” the man complained. “Why did You let me down?” To this God replied, “I sent you a rowboat, a motorboat, and a helicopter. What more did you expect?”

This story provides insight into the ways God provides and blesses. Similar to the stranded man, we often expect God to meet our needs in a certain way, which is likely monetarily. If the provision doesn’t come in this way, we are then tempted to feel that God didn’t uphold His promise. But God has more than one way to bless and provide. Yes, for some God richly provides through a well-paying job or some financial favor. For others He provides through other means, such as gifts from other believers. I have even experienced God’s provision through the blessing of friendship. During a period of a couple of years when I didn’t have health insurance, at least two situations arose that required emergency attention. Thankfully, years before, the Lord connected me with a physician who became my best friend. In these situations my friend was kind enough to perform the procedures I needed, which saved me thousands.

When Israel needed deliverance from captivity in Egypt, God raised up Moses to bring them out. Through a rock God provided His people with water. Out of thin air God faithfully delivered food each morning to His people in the middle of the desert. Provision might come in the most unconventional or unlikely ways, but be assured that it will come.^*

#ActivateTheWord

God provides for all my needs.

I will not worry about what I will eat, drink, or wear, or how I will pay the bills. God knows what I require, and He will supply it all according to His riches in glory in Christ. As I am obedient and faithful to handle God’s provision, I believe He will generously bless me beyond my needs so that I can also be a blessing to others.