October 17

Philippians 4:19 is a wonderful verse that is filled with hope because it contains an amazing promise. It assures the believer that, “God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” Sometimes we stop short of completing the verse—we neglect to say, “…in Christ Jesus.”

It isn’t that we intend to leave Him out. We know He is the integral component to our spiritual journey and we want the assurance of a close walk with Him. However, we would like to think that upon becoming a person of faith the promises of God automatically swing into gear in our behalf.

We want to think that our needs will be supplied, that we shall want for nothing and while we’re hoping, we want our successes, our status among men, our performance evaluations to exceed those of all our counterparts. We want everyone who looks upon our lives to recognize the excellence of our faith and understand the reward that accrues to us because of it.

God wants the excellence of our faith to be evident to everyone who looks upon our lives, too. His reasons differ from ours, however. We desire to be known as people of God, people of integrity and grace. God wants us to be known for the way we receive Christ’s strength when we are weak, His help when we are in need and He wants us to be noted for our faithfulness to Him.