You have an account in heaven (Part 1)
Verse of the day: Philippians 4:19 “And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus”
Most of Christians know the verse of the day by heart because it is very encouraging and it gives hope to everyone who is in a material need. It tells us about God who’s ready to provide to all our needs according to His riches. We all take it as a promise and we confess it without cease by faith but the problem is that sometime our needs are not provided despite of our good confession.
I’m afraid to disappoint you but this promise only concerned the church of Philip and those who are like them because of their generosity for the work of God. While writing this letter to the Philippians, Paul praises them above in comparing them to other churches which did nothing for him when he was with them and only Philippians assisted him even when he was in other towns like Thessalonica. We can wonder why Thessalonians didn’t assist him financially while he was working in their territory and he had to expect gifts from Philippians?
It has been a while that I learned that every biblical promise is followed by a condition…there is always an “if”. Let us see what Philippians did to merit such a good promise: Paul writes that since he set out his ministry from Macedonia, not one church shared with him in the matter of giving and receiving, except Philippians (Phil 4:15). It is clear that churches were receiving money but ignored the apostle Paul despite the fact that he was serving the Lord for them and his support had to come from Philippians as he said: “For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid more than once when I was in need” (Phil 4:16)
On verse 17 he says: “Not that I desire your gifts; what I desire is that more be credited to your account”. In this teaching, I will talk about that account. Every child of God has an account in heaven and the riches that Paul talks about in the verse of the day is according to everyone’s account. Some have a credit account while others have unfortunately a debit account.
In the second part, we will see why we need to supply our heavenly accounts so that we could be rescued in our needs.
In the middle of the teaching, I will not only talk about money but we will understand that everything we do here on earth is accounted in heaven and God often acts according to our actions because he respects the principle that he has established himself.
Chris Ndikumana
