He Shall Supply My Need

S. SEKOU ABODUNRIN

“But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.”            Phil 4.18

Every student of the New Testament should pause long enough to take in the sheer force and beauty of the passage above. God, through Paul is presenting the divine viewpoint and concept of the believer’s giving.

There are four parties here – The church at Philippi, Paul, Epaphroditus & God.

Epaphroditus gets special mention. We do not know that he has given any Philippian dollar, but we know he has given himself. We do not even know what it cost him not to be about his own business. Traveling back then was not as easy and safe as it is today. It takes a special kind of person to deliver money to a man in prison who cannot do anything to stop the misuse of the funds. Epaphroditus is that type of Christian. Paul mentions him by name – such a man deserves our utmost respect!

Firstly, I want you to notice that Paul is not like many Christians today who assume that whenever they are in some tough situation it is because God is angry with them or judging them. Paul received the provision of God through the Philippians, but this did not mean that he left the prison! He was still in prison when he sent back the response to the saints. How on earth could a man be in Paul’s situation and yet talk about the sufficiency of God?

Giving is an important outflow of our new nature in God. This is because love gives and being the sons and daughters of Love that we are, there is something within us that rejoices in giving.

The apostle Paul admits that the gifts of the Philippian church brought him to a place of abounding. Paul received from the Philippians that which met his need. Paul treats their giving as a form of ministry from them to him. Responding to love is the greatest ministry that there is in the entire universe.

Paul is conveying a beautiful truth. God supplies all our need. However, the very context implies that though God is omnipotent, He rarely supplies our physical need directly – he supplies our material need through a material medium. God uses practical means. In this instance, God through the Philippians supplied the need of Paul.

A fact that stands out is that the actual material given never makes its way out of the earth. Our gifts stay in the earth and should meet the need here on earth. That is God’s pattern.

The material given is immaterial to God.

Paul lifts the curtain and describes the heavenly aspects of this whole love-exercise. He speaks of that which is acceptable sacrifice that is well pleasing to God. This borrows from the idea of incense rising from a sacrifice in the Old Testament. He describes giving as an aroma, a sweet smelling aroma that reaches up to heaven.

We recall the sacrifice of Noah after he came out of the ark. It was described as a sweet smell to God. It would be sacrilegious for Noah to think that he was buying his safety by offering the sacrifice to God or that by that sacrifice he was standing on his covenant with God. Noah would be suffering from spiritual dyslexia – he would be having things in reverse. Clearly Noah did offer a sacrifice, but there was no saving power in it. He was simply worshipping God. Without that sacrifice, God saved Noah and provided protection for Noah from the raging storm.

The art of giving is a means of releasing worship to God. This describes the heavenly aspects of giving. God derives satisfaction when a believer yields to the love nature of God within his reborn spirit.

This means that a Christian responding to love within him can find any material medium to use to meet the need of another. There is the grim possibility that you might fellowship with a group of saints that vehemently forbid you to give what they perceive of as your smelly pounds sterling in church, but rejoice in the fact that God does not see or watch out for the pound sterling, he watches for the yielded heart of a love being.

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Phil 4.19 King James Version

“But my God shall supply all your need according to your consistency in releasing the pounds and dollars towards supporting my ministry.”
Phil 4.19 Prosperity Rediscovered Version

I was somewhat shocked the first time it dawned on me that Paul did not say “But my seed shall supply all my need“. My seed is not my God – it is my God that supplies all my need. I use seed wisely, but my gaze is on my God and on him alone.

That is a most profound statement from Apostle Paul. At the heart of it is the gospel itself. Accordingly here, Paul is dealing with how God supplies all our need. I encourage you to accept that wholeheartedly. There are some that believe that God has altogether abandoned the idea of supplying all our need, and this group sort of fight for their right to suffer. These maintain that the fulfillment of this apostolic affirmation of truth passed away with the dear old apostles.

There are others who maintain that the KJV rendition of it is altogether untrue – many of these go with the PRV (the prosperity re-discovered version). According to these, God monitors the church or para-church ministry’s bank account before pouring out his blessing upon the Christian. God is presented as playing catch-up, while the believer sort of starts the cycle by his giving.

The plain old KJV makes for a different reading though. It brings to us the fact that the Father God is able to bless us on the basis of Jesus’ becoming a curse for us. He was made poor, so that we through his poverty might be made rich.

But “Nay! Nay!! says some PRV-quoting believer – God supplies our need based on the riches of the pounds sterling given”

According to the PRV, the emphasis shifts from the sufficiency of Christ Jesus to the chequebook of the believer. In it, we see presented a solid case of how to “activate” God by giving or, as sometimes said, we fulfill our own end of the covenant by our financial giving.

Expounding from the PRV, some will affirm that Philippians 4.19 is actually a private promise spoken out by the Apostle for the benefit of the saints at Philippi. It is maintained that this is not even for every fellow at the church at Philippi, but the guys that gave specifically to Paul. This is Paul speaking to his partners, pulling out a specific word for their benefit.

“Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. ”   Philippians  4.15

Since the dear apostle also affirmed that no other church transacted with him in this way, and it is affirmed that the promise stated is only for those who gave to Paul, it would mean that God was not supplying the need of the Galatians, Ephesians, Colossians, and the fellows that gave in support of Peter’s ministry! In fact, if that were the case, since we do not know how to contact and give to the apostle Paul today, Christians today have no opportunity to join the Philippians. Nay! Says the PRV-totting preacher “just send the pounds sterling to my bank account, my ministry can convey to you the private blessings of Paul”

The truth is that neither our chequebooks nor Paul died for any believer. It is Christ that died and who was raised again.

We cannot stand on our chequebook or what we give from our chequebook. We stand on the finished work of Christ. We have to affirm with the apostle that God supplies all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus! The phrase is mind boggling for God has put all his wealth in his son and he supplies my finite need out of the depth of his measureless supply in Christ. God is not only going to meet the need, he is going to do it in glory or according to a manner befitting his status.

Let us notice what the apostle does not say. Paul does not say “I know that my God has supplied my need because I gave some temple shekels at the last seminar that Peter organised”. He knows about giving and receiving, but is careful to recognise that it was only in Christ Jesus that he had a full supply.

God has actually given us His Son – in this Son we have His full supply for our every need.

My faith is expectant that God will honour what he has said. He will supply all my need. There is abundant supply flowing out from the father towards me based on union with Christ! You see, union with Christ does not only provide justification or righteousness, it provides everything needed by the believer – union with Christ penetrates into and changes everything.

God supplies our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. We are to believe this. In reality because we are aware of this basic fact, we are not giving in order to get. We are giving in order that some other believer might get!

Clearly the believer should live in the expectancy of God’s ability and willingness to saturate him with benefits out of his riches in Christ. We however do not give because we are hoping that God will then give back to us as a result. This is a deadly trap – an easy one to fall for.

The fact that two things go together does not mean that they are one and the same thing. I fully expect to receive from God. This is based on what He said about Himself in His word. He said He supplies my need, so I trust Him to do just that. As a believer I am to grow in my awareness of His willingness and ability to supply my need and yet I must not expect him to do this because I give, for then it would be that my supply is from my giving and not from His benevolence in Christ Jesus.

I do not give to ensure that I will receive. I give because I have a new nature in God through which the love of God flows out to be a blessing to another in a practical way.

When the Philippians gave, they ensured that Paul would be able to receive his need met! I give out of love and as a means of acting on the word. I get my need met by fully expecting God to be a father to me. The two are not the same. I live in fervent expectancy; on tiptoes that God is my full supply because the very word of God guarantees this and not because I give.

Paul also brings out some important fact – He is not using some reverse psychology to get the Philippians to give more. He is not praising them so as to cause them to part with more of the pounds sterling. If that were his aim, then he would be using praise, or really flattery to manipulate them.

… to be continued

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