Many of us can recite Philippians 4:13 by heart: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” It’s a favorite for inspirational posters, social media captions and pep talks before big life moments. But according to Pastor Mike Signorelli of V1 Church, we’ve been missing the deeper truth, and when you see it, it’s even more encouraging.
“I know you’ve been quoting it for so many years, but you have interpreted it wrong,” Signorelli said in a recent video. “Here’s the good news. I’m going to open up the scriptures and show you what Philippians 4:13 really means.”
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The problem, he explained, is that we often “divorce it from the larger context” and apply it to our personal ambitions, even those outside God’s will. “We have become so individualistic that we take these verses to endorse our own selfish ambition,” he said. “Like God is not going to divinely give you strength to do something outside of His divine plan.”
Instead, Signorelli pointed to the verses before and after, Philippians 4:12 and 4:14, where the apostle Paul talks about knowing how to be “brought low” and how to “abound,” having “learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
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“When you see that, it completely changes the meaning,” Signorelli said. “The reality is as a Christian we face all of the above… In all of those things I can do it through Christ Jesus.”
For him, this isn’t a verse about limitless human potential, it’s about supernatural strength to walk through every season of life with Christ. “When I’m on the mountaintop or I’m in the valley, He’s with me in both of those situations,” he said. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me in the cancer diagnosis and in the report that the cancer was healed… when I get the job, when I get fired from the job… whether I’m up or down, in or out, no matter what the circumstance, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
This understanding protects believers from disappointment and disillusionment. “Part of the reason why people deconstruct from Christianity is because we’ve actually eliminated the context,” Signorelli said. When hard times come, some think, ‘Wait a second, this is incompatible, I should only be in abundance.’ But in reality, Paul was teaching that Christ’s strength is there in both abundance and need.
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So the next time you say Philippians 4:13, remember what it’s really promising, not a free pass to chase anything you want, but the unshakable presence of Jesus in every high and low.
As Signorelli put it, “Let’s stop deleting the reality of trouble. Let’s actually add Jesus into all of it.”
James Lasher is staff writer for Charisma Media.
