Who is sufficient?
Merry Monday by Parris Bailey
“Not that we are fit (qualified and sufficient in ability) of ourselves to form personal judgments or to claim or count anything as coming from us, but our power and ability and sufficiency are from God.”(2 Corinthians 3:5 AMP)
This is one of my favorite scriptures! The Apostle Paul learned a vital lesson on the Damascus Road that forever changed his life. Not only did he have an encounter with Christ Himself, but he left his old life beyond and considered it rubbish. He truly had a revelation of Christ in him. We will be throughout eternity discovering the mystery of the Church, His Bride. All of our gifts, education, talents, abilities and make up, God will use them for His honor and glory. As we look and live upward, He in turn gives us an ever increasing fountain as we say continually, ”our sufficiency is from Him”.
Paul recognized one could serve God with human talents in such a way as to draw attention to self and so his motive was “that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ”. Luther said, “If I’m left to myself, I will certainly bring it all to destruction”.
Unless the Holy Spirit sanctify and illuminate our intellect we are incompetent to even think God-like thoughts. All of Paul’s work was under divine workmanship, it was not to make much of himself. He said, “it is not that we are adequate in ourselves to reckon anything to our credit, but our adequacy comes from God.” (World Commentary) When an inebriate staggered up to D.L. Moody and said, “Mr. Moody, I am one of your converts, Moody replied and said, “You must be one of mine, you certainly are not one of the Lord’s.”
“The nature of Christianity is such that it requires an equipment beyond the ordinary. It is not a natural philosophy, but a supernatural life. The absence of this divine sufficiency undoubtedly accounts for much of our human insufficiency. Through God’s sufficiency comes our efficiency. This new nature must have a new environment. It must have a new atmosphere and new food. It must have a new source of vitality if it is to function in its new activity. The new man in Christ cannot live on the same menu as the old man in Adam. The new service under the Great Commission of Christ cannot be rendered efficient by the old efforts. The new service requires a new sufficiency. Paul says “our sufficiency is of God.” (Roy Laurin)
Coming from an uneducated and “messed up” background, I had to learn very quickly to get “over myself” and throw myself upon God as I became a wife, mother, pastor’s wife, administrator. I can relate with Paul when he says he “dies daily”. Have you too hit a wall? Maybe it’s time to give your keys to the master and let him drive for awhile. The good news is that He has been down this road before, after all it’s not His first rodeo.