Philippians 4:10-23
No doubt Paul remembers his first visit to Philippi, the prison and the hymns he sang there with Silas (Acts 16:24-25). Once more he is a prisoner, but nothing takes his joy from him, because nothing can take Christ from him. It is the same with regard to his strength. "I can do all things," he says, despite his chains "through Christ which strengtheneth me" (cf. 2 Corinthians 6:10). Like him, we learn to be content whatever may be our circumstances: success or difficulty, health or sickness, good times or bad . . . if we are content in the Lord.
Although they were very poor, the Philippians had just sent fresh help to the apostle by the hand of Epaphroditus (read 2 Corinthians 8:1-5). The apostle assures them from his own experience: "My God shall supply all your need" – but not all your covetous desires. He involves the responsibility of his God as if he were endorsing a blank cheque which can make available unlimited credit for himself and his friends: nothing less than "his riches in glory" (v. 19; Ephesians 3:16). May God grant us to experience the secret of the happy apostle: the full sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ, until the longing utterance of the psalm is at last accomplished: "I will behold thy face . . . I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" (Psalms 17:15).