Monday, July 21, 2008

Next     Previous     Today

A Time for Weakness

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me" (2 Corinthians 12:9).

I always thought that I could best serve Jesus by being strong.  And I tried for a long time to do just that.  It was even okay at first.  I think that God, in his grace, allowed my mistaken thinking, hoping that eventually I would catch on.  Our strength, however, can only take us so far.  With God's help, our strength may take us a little bit further than that.  However, as long as it is my strength which accomplishes a thing, I end up getting the glory, and God has said that "I will not give my glory to another" (Isaiah 42:8).

Paul the apostle tried to serve God in his own strength.  He was called Saul at that point.  And he missed it.  In fact, he ended up being so horribly wrong that Jesus had to confront him on the Damascus road.  Saul found out that he was actually working against the one he thought he was serving!  It is not about working hard.  It is not about zeal.  Not about my strength.  What I can do.  It is about submission and obedience.  "God has chosen the weak things to shame the strong" (1 Corinthians 1:27).  When I bow my knee and acknowledge that I am weak but he is strong, as the little children's chorus goes, then things work out as they are supposed to.  And, I come to discover that he doesn't need me to be strong.  He wants me to come as a little child — Jesus loves me, this I know!

We will never really know his love for us as long as we persist in being strong.  Whenever we come in strength, then we are the one who is the lover and the giver.  And he wants for each of us to know the joy and the indescribable bliss of being loved.  So, it is the time to be weak.  It is the time to place ourselves under God's mighty hand.  So that He may make you and me much more than we could ever be any other way!

"Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.  What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:7-8).

We have the privilege and the opportunity today and everyday to lay down our own strength — what we can do or think that we can do — and embrace his strength.  If it is true that, "I can do all things through him who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13), then the reverse is equally true, that I can do no things without his strength!

Jim Cymbala, pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, says, "I discovered an astonishing truth:  God is attracted to weakness.  He can't resist those who humbly and honestly admit how desperately they need him.  Our weakness, in fact, makes room for his power."

When we acknowledge and embrace our weakness — our inability to really do anything to change ourselves, our circumstances, our problems, or others - then and only then, will his power be present to make those changes.  "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses . . . For when I am weak, then I am strong" (2 Corinthians 12:10).

Next     Previous     Today