v. 3: Your life should be free from the love of money. Be satisfied with what you have, for He Himself has said, "I will never leave you or forsake you." [Deuteronomy 31:6]
v. 4: Therefore, we may boldly say:
The Lord is my helper;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
Psalm 118:6
I love these verses. In the process of talking about being free from the love of money and being satisfied with what we have, Paul reminds us that God has said He will never leave us or foresake us. When he says, "...be satisfied with what you have..." he adds to the same sentence, "...for He Himself..." What we have is God. When we have Him we have all we need, and Paul knew that. We are satisfied. Nothing in this world can compare to God and nothing in this world can fill our emptiness and needs like He can.
Paul goes on to quote Psalm 118:6..."What can man do to me?" Paul knew that if the Lord is with us, we have nothing to fear. In the perspective of this truth, he knw that the only things man can do to us are steal our earthly possessions, slander our name, take a loved one out of our life, inflict bodily harm or even physical death. But man can never destroy our souls or snatch us from the hand of God.
I know this sounds harsh but form the perspective of the Kingdom of Almighty God, everything we set our eyes on here on this earth is temporary...even our bodies...TEMPORARY. But eternity, that's where we want our focus. Paul had his focus there and anything man could do to him here really wasn't a threat. He was so in love with God.
"Don't fear those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul; rather, fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." -Jesus [Matthew 10:28]
We need to be reminded of this often. It's so easy to get caught up in the world. We lose sight of what is really important.
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