Glory In Weakness
Do you know your calling? Do you want to know it? Have you been trying to understand it according to your skills and talents in the natural? Do you think it is to be discovered based on your strengths? Do you know why God the Father chose you to be one of His own?
God does not call, nor does He save, based on natural strength and abilities potential. There’s no such thing as someone being brought into the kingdom for what they can do for it based on their natural abilities. Don’t believe me?
1Corinthians 1:26 For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. 27 But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; 28 and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, 29 that no flesh should glory in His presence. 30 But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— 31 that, as it is written, “He who glories, let him glory in the LORD.”
God likes to take advantage of our weaknesses. He likes to show Himself strong in our weaknesses so that the glory might be His and not ours. He likes to show the world how foolishly they think and how foolish their confidence in themselves is.
God has never enjoyed and still does not enjoy any flesh glorying in His presence. Why is flesh (Self-reliance) not enjoyed by God?
Romans 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.
When self-reliance is lost, it opens the door to relying on Christ Jesus. In that place, Christ becomes everything! He becomes our wisdom from God, our righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. We do not fight for our rights to receive anything based on our own delusional strength and goodness.
God did not save me because I was all that and a bag of chips. He saved me because I desperately needed to be saved. I needed to be rescued. I could not buy my own redemption. I could not earn my way into righteousness. I could not make myself holy. I needed these realities to come to me from a source that possessed them already and had more than enough to rescue me and transform me.
Paul, as an apostle of Jesus, learned this lesson and embraced the empowerment it offers when one walks into it.
2Corinthians 12:9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that you do not have what it takes in the power of the flesh to be what God calls you to be. No one can will themselves to become a new creation, nor can they behave themselves into such a supernatural transformation. There’s nothing about the flesh that could ever have what it takes to get into the kingdom, let alone remain in the kingdom. It is all of God and His grace and His mercy and goodness that anyone ever gets new life, is sanctified and has even the tiniest amount of wisdom. God has not called us to be supermen and women. He has called us to live in a place of reliance upon Him in relationship with Him through Jesus Christ. My weakness brings Him glory, so I will glory in my weakness as opposed to my strength!
