Self-Sufficiency or God’s Sufficiency!

2 Corinthians 12

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, October 23.

I don’t like failing! I prefer to be sufficient to accomplish whatever task that needs to be done, but that whole mindset is a dangerous trap of pride and arrogance.

There is no rest in self-sufficiency!

Paul gives us a powerful teaching from the Lord in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10,

And [the Lord] 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.

The teachings of Jesus Christ are counter-intuitive to our corrupted desires for self-sufficiency and power. We want to live as independent powerful beings, but God has hard-wired us to be dependent creatures—dependent on God and one another!

My weaknesses constantly remind me of my inability to live this life on my own power. For it is only then, when I am confronted with my weaknesses, that I can begin to live according to God’s design and in harmony with why Jesus came to show us the way and to die for our true freedom.

Christ emptied Himself so that we can be become full of Him! We are freed from self-sufficiency to live in God’s sufficiency!

Seize the moment and find rest, not in the ongoing work of your own hands, but in the finished work of His nail-scarred hands; not from the sweat on your own brow, but in the shed blood of His thorn-pierced brow. Surrender to God’s sufficiency today!

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