Hello. My name is Fergus Scarfe, and welcome to God Today. You know, there’s a wonderful line in the book of Philippians chapter four: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Sometimes we put it on bumper stickers, we put it on t-shirts. We put it as little notes in our Bibles. We stick it on our fridges. It is, I kind of teasingly say, God’s Superman scripture. But is it? I can ride on the wind and on the waves, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me? Or is it the conclusion to something else?
You see, Paul uses this wonderful line as his confidence, that in fact, a couple of verses earlier, he says “Whether good or bad whether up or down, I have learned in all things therewith, to be content.” You know, finding contentment in this discontented world is a genuinely divine thing. For so many of us in the middle of our anxieties, and our pain, our difficulties, and our sorrows. We are scarred. We are troubled. We are anxious. But Paul says in Philippians chapter four, verse 11, “Not that I speak in regard to need, because I’ve learned in whatsoever state, I am to be content. I know how to be abased, (that’s troubled), and I know how to abound (that’s the stuff we like) everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full or to be hungry, both to abound or to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Precious God Today family, as we go through this day, will we learn just a little more? Will we gain just a little more by learning to be content? Sometimes the prayers that we pray, the things that we are concerned about, the anxieties that we have, well, there is no abracadabra in the Bible. There is no magic wand that will make it all better. This Kingdom of God, isn’t Disney. It’s not Hollywood, but it is supernatural and it is everlasting. And it is the Kingdom that through the blood of Jesus, we all get to be a part. So when we’re concerned, when we want to be Christian Superman or Christian Superwoman, maybe we need to learn to read just a couple of verses before and see one of those great secrets that the apostle Paul had found and found in abundance. Whether things are going well, whether things are going badly, whether it’s good or it’s frankly miserable, he has learned in these things to be content, because truly I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.