Dear Travelers,

I begin this post with this entry from my journal for Thursday, 9 January 2014.

My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

—Philippians 4.19a

I begin this day remembering that God is Yahweh Yireh. He is the God who provides. He is the Great I AM who will supply my every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Today I remember, “I can trust God in the present because of what He has already done for us in the past, which leads me to depend on Him for my future,” (Scott J. Hafemann, The God of Promise and the Life of Faith, 108).

As I look back over 2013, I remember with thanksgiving how God truly supplied every need of mine. We had food, clothing, shelter and income – all these were the fruit of His provision. When I was vulnerable to doubt and questioned God’s willingness and ability to supply my every need, the Spirit reminded me of Paul’s words in Philippians 4.19 together with Hafemann’s maxim to inspire me to put my hope and trust in God’s promise of future grace. God will not leave us nor forsake us. God continues to provide/supply every need of mine notwithstanding my fear He will let me experience lack.

So I must yield my anxious heart to His providing grace. I must speak to my soul and encourage trust/obedience in God and His provision. God is faithful. He will supply every need of mine. His promise is as sufficient as it is praiseworthy. Surplus is grace upon grace. There are many reasons why God is faithful to supply every need of mine, but the two most fundamental reasons why are— 1) to glorify His name 2) to encourage me to a greater faithfulness to Him – the more satisfied I am in God the more glorified He is in me.

The faithfulness of God should inspire me to live faithfully. Reading through Jonathan Edwards’ list of seventy resolutions, I found Resolution 32 to be a strong encouragement to do just that.

Resolved, to be strictly and firmly faithful to my trust, so that in Proverbs 20:6, “A faithful man who can find?” may not be partly fulfilled in me.”

The goal of living faithfully is to develop an ever-increasing trust in the trustworthiness of God. The more I trust in the faithfulness of God the more faithful I will be in following Him by following Jesus—not partially faithful, but as totally faithful as I can be—this side of eternity. I will never be perfect at living faithfully, but I will strive to live as faithfully as I can in this life. I will live faithfully because God is faithful.

I will live faithfully by trusting in the faithfulness of God.

An important part of living faithfully is trusting God to supply our needs. According to Philippians 1.6, God will finish what He started because He will supply everything we need to get us to the finish line. Just as God supplied Paul with every need of his, Paul assures the Philippians God will prove just as faithful to supply every need of theirs. While this may sound like something you’d read inside a greeting card, remember that Paul wrote Philippians from prison. Prison! And yet he is convinced God will supply every need they have according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

The only way a man in prison could have such trust in God’s faithfulness is because he learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need (see 4.11-12). And this is key. We must learn to live faithfully. None of us is born faithful. We must learn to trust God to supply every need of ours – starting with our greatest need: salvation. Once we trust God for our salvation, we can begin to learn how to press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. It comes down to making a resolution to live faithfully by trusting in the faithfulness of God. It is because Paul trusted in the faithfulness of God that he could “do all things through Him who gives me strength” (4.13).

As God enabled and empowered Paul to live faithfully while enduring persecution and imprisonment, so too, can He enable and empower us to live faithfully as we encounter and endure whatever circumstances God leads us through. Whatever it is, He will supply every need of ours. The challenge is to let God define the need. This is where trust is learned.

We must incline our hearts to seek and desire God’s supply of what we need over what we want. We want many things, but we need very few. In 1 Timothy 6.8, Paul boils it down to two things: if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. And should our need surpass the need for food and clothing, we have God’s promise to supply every need of ours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

So what do you need?

Living faithfully means trusting God to supply every need of ours instead of every want. It is about seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. When we trust God to supply our need the Holy Spirit teaches us to live with the broader perspective of God’s point of view. And as the Spirit widens our gaze He helps us to look beyond the margins of our own heart, mind and soul. He focuses our attention on where God is at work.

Although His hand is unseen, He is writing the script, constructing the background, and blocking each scene. God is in charge from top to bottom, start to finish, opening night to final performance. And He will supply our every need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

You think about that.