Friday, September 14, 2018
For
consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the
flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things
of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world
to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the
despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the
things that are, so that no man may boast before God. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
Strength Out of Weakness
"It is not our littleness that hinders Christ;
but our bigness. It is not our weakness that hinders Christ; it is our
strength. It is not our darkness that hinders Christ; it is our supposed light
that holds back His hand." Charles H. Spurgeon
Surprisingly, we Christians sometime develop the
wrong idea about who needs what. Don’t
misunderstand. Certainly, we should obey
God’s commands, we ought to take seriously the work God has given us to take
the gospel to all people, everywhere, and surely, we ought to be involved in
doing good in this world so full of things that are bad. We ought to make a positive difference.
The trouble is that we sometimes get the idea that
God can’t get along very well without us.
We develop the attitude that it is through our strength, our ingenuity,
our talents and effort that great things are done. Actually, while we should offer Him all of
these, our offering is really pretty puny.
Charles Spurgeon understood something about God’s
greatness. It works best when we don’t
hamper it by getting our puny little selves in God’s way. In fact, we end up accomplishing more and
better things when we allow God to work in and through us.
When you think about all the great things that God
has done throughout man’s history, you’ve got to be impressed with how He used
the least expected resources. Take the
nation of Israel. Compared to other
nations, it never was really much at all, yet God used Israel to bring the
Messiah into the world.
Getting more specific, who would have picked an
isolated shepherd, keeping a flock out in the middle of nowhere, to be the guy
to lead God’s people out of Egypt? Yet
that’s exactly what Moses was at the time he was called. King David was just a young man, probably
rather small, yet he took on the giant Goliath when Israel’s army shook in fear
of him. And, who really, expected a
handful of Galileans–former tax collectors, ex-revolutionaries, and fishermen–to
change the world? No, you just have to
stand back and be amazed at how God has chosen to do things. He picks the weaknesses in humans and turns
those weaknesses into great accomplishments, all to display His own power and
might.
The question for us, though, is how to get out of
God’s way. It’s not always clear. God certainly can and will use us for His
purposes. What isn’t so clear is when we
are effective tools and when we are a hindrance to what God wants to do. Perhaps the answer is to keep recognizing
that it doesn’t depend on us. Maybe the
concern is one of our faith in God. When
we realize that it’s not our strength that matters, but God’s, then we’re ready
to become as useful as possible in God’s hands.
It doesn’t mean we should sit down and refuse to act. It means that we act with the knowledge that
God will use us.
That, by the way, is really the only way you’ll ever
take on things that look bigger than you, and sooner or later, you’ll run into
a few of those. When you do, let God
make you strong.
Scripture
to Claim:
"And
He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in
weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so
that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with
weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with
difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
