COV LIFE BLOG

Philippians 4:15-23 – The Grace of God in Giving and Receiving

Bring forth your vessels, even empty vessels! “All your need.” I do not suppose that you are under any great obligation to go out, tonight, and borrow other people’s needs, for you have enough of your own at home—needs many and varied. Very well, set them out. Hide none of them away, but put them down, one after another, in a long row, all of them. There are needs for your body, needs for your soul. There are needs for yourselves, needs for your families—needs for the present, needs for the future—needs for time, needs for eternity. There are needs for earth, needs for Heaven. Your needs are as many as your moments—as many as the hairs of your head.

Dear! Dear! We would need a library larger than the Bodleian to hold all the books which could be written of all the needs of the needy congregation now before me! Well, I am not sorry for it, for here is so much the more room for the Lord to work His miracles of bountiful Grace!

Until the funds run low we cannot expect to see them replenished—when they get low, then will God come and deal graciously with us! Money is, however, our smallest need—we need Grace, wisdom, light and comfort—and these we shall have. All our needs are occasions for blessing. The more needs you have the more blessing you will get. God has promised to fill up all your needs. That is, all your empty vessels will be filled and, therefore, the more the merrier! What? The more in need the better? Yes, I would have your faith believe that strange statement—your poverty shall thus be your riches, your weakness your strength, your abasement your exaltation! Your extremity shall be an opportunity that God will use to show the riches of His Grace! To your utter exhaustion He will draw near with all the fullness of His inexhaustible Grace and He will replenish you till your cup runs over!

He will fill up all your empty vessels. Be not slow to fetch them out from holes and corners and place them before the Lord, however many they may be. Weep not over the empty jars, but place them out in rows in full expectation of their being filled to the brim!

Paul says, “My God will supply all your need.” “My God!” Oh, that is grand! It were foolish talking if any other name were mentioned! God can supply all the needs of His people, for He is All-Sufficient—but nobody else can. He can do it without any help, for nothing is too hard for the Lord. He is able to number the myriads of His creatures and attend to the commissariat of them all, so that not one of them shall lack—“He calls them all by their names, by the greatness of His power not one fails.” “They that wait upon the Lord shall not want any good thing.” As for you, dear Brothers and Sisters, “trust in the Lord and do good, so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed.” He that promises to fill up all your empty vessels is one who can do it—there is no limit to the goodness and power of God!

Charles Spurgeon

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Heart Preparation
Read Philippians 4:15-23. What empty vessels in your life can God fill for you now? And if we have a God big enough to provide all our needs what can you dare to do and what can you give generously for his glory?

Song for this Week
Behold Our God