What kind of week have
you had? Make that month, year, life.
Has it been brimming full of being amazing or have you found yourself,
like me, constantly falling short – an in your face reminder of all your inabilities,
inadequacies and insufficiencies? And we can’t get away from it. If life
doesn’t tell us we are NOT ENOUGH, Satan, and others step in and remind us.
When we perceive, or even worse believe, that we are NOT ENOUGH, that we can’t be what we are supposed to be or do what we are supposed to do, we seek ways to compensate for the inability, soothe the sense of inadequacy, cover up with some other abundance or excess the insufficiency. Unfortunately, anything other than Christ will fail and underscore our failure.
He alone is the answer
to our, to my …
… inability
- “All doing is by the enabling of me by Christ” (word by word
translation of Philippians 4:13)
…
inadequacy - “We are not adequate in ourselves to consider anything coming from
ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:5)
…
insufficiency - “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9) “And God is able to make all grace abound to you so that always having
all sufficiency in everything you may have an abundance for every
good deed.” (2
Corinthians 9:8)
He alone makes us
ENOUGH to face the challenges, struggles and pain of this life - this day -
this moment.
Let me add one more
defeating “i”: inferior. We measure
ourselves against others, especially their seemingly lack of “i’s,” and our
conclusion is that we are hopeless and useless.
But just as there is a balancing truth for inability, inadequacy and
insufficiency, there is one that not only offsets our being inferior but all of
our defeating “i’s” that tell us we are not enough.
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. By HIS doing you are in Christ Jesus, who
became to us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and
redemption. 1 Corinthians 1:26-30
Truth is, I am a NOT.
I am pretty sure I can say with confidence that you are a NOT as well. We
are inferior, inadequate, insufficient and fraught with inabilities. But, God
has chosen the NOT. The word chosen in
the above passage is a wonderful word: ekelekato
= to pick or chose for one’s self. He wants you; He wants me; He wants us, the
NOTs. We are beloved and chosen of God!
That is exactly what it says in the Greek. Ekelekato
o Theos (chosen of God) ta me onta (the
not continually being), hina (so
that) ta onta (the continually being)
katargese (may be rendered idle, inactivated, no longer
have efficiency, force, influence or power.)
Because we are chosen of God, being a NOT no longer has defeating power
over us.
Life, Satan, others and even self will continue to
remind us that we are inferior, inadequate, insufficient and fraught with
inability. It is time to say “thank
you!” Because all our “i’s” now remind
us that we are infinitely loved and invaluable to our God. Our real “i” is that we are IN Him with all
the hope and purpose that truth affords, and He is in us through His indwelling
Spirit filling us joy and peace. He is
always more than ENOUGH.
Make It
Personal
How have you attempted to compensate or cover up your
inabilities, being inadequate or inferior and the reality of insufficiencies?
How has this only reinforced the defeating “i’s” in
your life?
Try to put into words what it means to you that the
Lord chose you for Himself.
How does knowing that you are IN Christ and He is in
you negate the defeating power of your being a NOT?
Is He truly ENOUGH for all your NOT ENOUGH?
