A Call To The Remnant

Php 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.

This verse is one of the high water marks of our walk with the Lord. Paul says that he had “learned,” to be content no matter what situation he found himself in. This learning did not come from his studies at the feet of human teachers. This learning came from having experienced everything that life had to throw at him, or better stated, everything that he had to suffer for the cause of Christ.

Whether it was being hungry or without proper clothing, having a lot of money or having no money at all, Paul had learned. Whether he was popular or whether he was rejected, he had learned. When he was shipwrecked and adrift in the sea, he had learned. Whether he had the skin torn from his back or stoned to within an inch of his life, he had learned. Whether he was a free man in this world or whether he found himself at the bottom of a dungeon, he had learned.

What had he learned? What had a multitude of afflictions taught him? He has learned that His Lord and Savior was always with him and always took him through. When you can look back at your own life and see what the Lord has brought you through, how He walked with you through a multitude of trials and afflictions you can see that He always took you through, through the fires and through the floods of life.

Look back and see where He has brought you from. See what He has delivered you from. See how He has provided for you. Looking back is very rarely healthy, yet when we think back to how the Lord has delivered us time and time again it builds our faith. It strengthens our tomorrows when we can look back at our yesterdays and see what the Lord has brought us through and how far He has taken us. We lean not so much about our own faith, we learn and appreciate the faithfulness of God. As we learn how faithful the Lord is, it actually grows our faith. All good things flow from God, including our faith, all the glory belongs to Him.

If we have come to the place that we can rejoice when our teachers are the bread of afflictions and the waters of adversity then we can say with Paul that we have learned to be content in every situation. Bread and water is the diet of prisoners, it is designed to barely keep them alive. Yet our life comes not from bread alone but from every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of God. A word from God is life to us. Water is the most basic need of man, but we drink from the eternal wells of living water that flow from heaven above.

Therefore, even in chains and in the most dire of situations we can rejoice. We will always have bread from heaven and the living waters of life to revive our soul. Therefore we can rejoice in the Lord our God just like Paul and Silas in the dungeon. Paul could be content in every situation because he had learned, by actual experience, that God was with him in every situation. Dear saint, He is with you, and in this we rest.