It Is Easy To Misunderstand This Verse

Philippians 4:19
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.

When the Bible tells us that God will meet all our needs we get excited because it is like a promise to solve all our problems. Who wouldn’t mind all their problems being solved? Can you imagine all your needs, emphasis on all, that they have all been met, isn’t that an exciting thought? That excitement is the reason why it is easy to misunderstand this verse.

Excitement is not a problem, the problem is overlooking what the text is telling us. First, the Bible talks of meeting our needs and not our wants. Needs are what we may not be able to do without. When we are in need we are desperate for survival. wants are things we can do without but we still desire them. Needs include food, shelter, and clothing. There are definitely other needs. Wants may include luxurious items without which we may be sad but life goes on smoothly anyway. The text says God will meet all our needs, but many times we also have wants in mind when saying Amen to this text. That is why it is easy to misunderstand this verse.

The needs will not be met according to our list of needs but according to the riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Many times when we think of this text, we think of needs being met according to the list we have developed. Our list may not match the list that is developed in the riches of the glory in Christ Jesus. When the list we have and God’s list differ, we expect God will use our list, but He uses His own list for our needs. Therefore when we say Amen to this text, many times we do not have God’s list of our needs in mind. That is why it is easy to misunderstand this verse.

Our understanding of needs is many times material things. We think of our comfort and welfare on earth. God on the other hand is desirous that we will be ready for eternity with Him. God is preparing us for eternal bliss through His provision of our needs. We make requests for needs to be met with a focus on our here and now. Therefore, when God says He will meet all our needs, our priority is present comfort, but His priority is our fitness for eternal life. Therefore, we end up misunderstanding this verse.

2 Corinthians 12:8
Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.

2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:10
That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Apostle Paul prayed for a need for healing. Healing is a need. But God answered according to His riches in glory, by enabling Paul to live with that problem. We would expect that God would remove the problem, but He didn’t. To insist that the only way Paul’s prayer would be answered is when the problem is solved is to misunderstand the verse.

Joseph was sold as a slave. As he went into slavery his prayer and need were to be released to go back home to daddy. God on the other hand was meeting a future need of saving a whole community from starvation. God did not answer Joseph’s prayer to just go home. God answered that prayer according to His riches in glory by making Joseph a ruler of Egypt, which required that Joseph goes to Egypt as a slave. Joseph may have thought the power of God will take him home. God through His power made the impossible possible where a prisoner slave became a ruler in Egypt. Indeed it was God’s riches in glory, but it didn’t look like that when Joseph went into slavery crying and praying and wondering why God was silent. Unless we see it this way, we will keep misunderstanding this verse.

Psalms 84:11
…no good thing does he withhold
from those whose walk is blameless.

God will still meet all our needs, only that it may not be in our time or in our understanding of those needs. There are needs God will prioritize that we have not considered. That Bible text is true but how it will be answered is where we get confused. We must come to the realization that God will answer in His way not our way but for our good and His glory. May it be so in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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