How God's Power Works Best
Theme of the Week: God's Sandpaper
Friday, August 7, 2009
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me (2 Corinthians 12:9). Bonus Reading: 2 Cor. 12:7b-10
Our culture says that pain and suffering is failure, that someone who struggles with fear and rejection
isn't walking with God. Something has gone wrong—they made a mistake, they didn't listen, they didn't read the right books. Those who accept the god of competence never stop to remember that Jesus struggled, was rejected and considered a zealous idiot by many.
Competence is a barrier; it makes people who see themselves as less competent feel you don't understand them and, therefore, can't help them. My image of competence, which came through much stronger than my need of God's help, became the greatest barrier to my connecting with others. My wife, Jane, told me that the reason I "ticked some people off" was that I made work look easy.
When God broke me, he gave me words to express that brokenness in a way that got through to those around me. Then real power came into my life, preaching, and personal interaction. They could see me as one of them—a fellow believer struggling daily to live out the life that Christ lived. What a glorious day when I realized that Paul's words of honoring weakness were about me.
—Bill Hull in Choose the Life
My Response: Am I open to letting God use my weaknesses as well as my strengths?
Thought to Apply: No wounds? No scar? Can he have followed far who hath no wounds, nor scar? —Amy Carmichael (Irish missionary to India)
Adapted from Choose the Life (Baker, 2004) by permission.
Copyright © 2009 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Thank you, Lord, for receiving me just as I was. But thank you, also, for your insistence on reshaping me for maximum usefulness in your kingdom.
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