“…And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:19
If there is one thing the Bible does, it takes the individual seeker of God in Jesus Christ on a voyage to discover and behold almost every conceivable circumstance that men face on this earth, and present to every individual a response to every need in that circumstance. God is the God of all circumstances in that there is nothing that He does not see, know, or can deal with. When the Apostle Paul writes to the believers in Philippi that, “…it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure,” the Apostle knows what this means, and how this truth applies. God, in the circumstances of His choosing, sometimes like in the case of Job, which were very hard to understand and grasp, God, as Rutherford put it, “…purposes a crop.” Even when Habakkuk was given the vision of what God would do by the hand of the Chaldeans towards Israel, and the magnitude of the suffering that they would inflict, God’s purpose was not to destroy, but to save Israel. However, that salvation would only be real and true, and His purposes realized, when Israel returned to the Lord, and He restored her soul. The matter of restoring the soul of a people or nation, as well as that of an individual believer, is a very real, and essential matter to pursue. Why? It is because of the context in which man on this earth finds himself, a context where sin abounds, and the consequences of sin manifest themselves, the results being for the most part, great suffering. So, where do we begin in the consideration of the restoring of the soul, and in particular, considering the RESTORER of the soul?
In the case of Israel as a people, but more specifically, with regard to the individual believer in Christ, we must begin with the One who declares Himself to be “…the Lord, the first, and with the last I am He.” (Isaiah 41:4) Why is this so very important, to begin with Christ, the One who in the book of Revelation declares Himself to be: “…the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.?” (1:8,11) It is because first of all, the help of man is vain. Man, in and of himself, cannot meet all his physical needs, much less those which are spiritual. There is no person on earth who knows everything, from the beginning to the end, nor has the capacity and motivation to meet the needs of helpless and hopeless man, but God. The Father has demonstrated His willingness to meet man where he is, in order to bring him where God would have him to be, if he seeks God in Christ. Sinful man, because of his natural bent, and leaning, to defy God, resisting all from God, is left to his own devices, methods, philosophies, and “means,” to meet his own needs. God allows this to occur, but uses difficult circumstances to reveal to man his need of that which is beyond his capacity to understand, or grasp. Some men seek the answer in some other “god,” rather than in the God of the Bible, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Christ Himself, our Maker and Redeemer. However, only by the Spirit of God can man’s deep need be met, but this God will do, if the individual turns to Him and truly calls upon Him.
As Christ waits ever ready to hear the helpless cry of the soul in order to save him, so He is ever ready, in the context of a difficult world, to answer the cry of the heart. God restores the soul by cleansing the heart from sin, and this by the individual’s confession and repentance. He then strengthens the heart to believe, or lay hold upon Christ by faith, according to His word. God’s promises are His bond, He being perfectly faithful. He restores the soul in the present moment.
Dear Father, Hear our cry today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.