The following is adapted from Bob Hoestra’s class Living By God’s Sufficiency, available free at the Blue Letter Bible Institute (www.blbi.org).
Previous posts in this series:
- Series Introduction
- The New Covenant: What Is It?
- The New Covenant Promised to Israel Eventually
- The New Covenant for the Church Today
- The New Covenant Provided by the Blood of Christ
The primary implications and applications of new covenant living for the lives of believers exist at the heart of the Gospel. The heart of the new covenant beats for daily living in the abundant grace of God.
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.
(2 Corinthians 3:5)
God’s Sufficiency Is for Godly Living
Embrace God’s sufficiency. Believe in God’s sufficiency. Stand upon it. Act upon it. Revel in God’s sufficiency with your whole heart and mind. It can be humbling and uncomfortable to realize that one is sufficient of himself. And yet, as there is nothing of lasting value within man that is not directly from Christ Himself, the realization can only serve to liberate the believer from guilt and shame. Man is not sufficient to think of anything godly, anything eternal, anything Christlike, anything life-giving, anything justifying, sanctifying, edifying, transforming, or anything good. Of himself, man can do nothing. And that is humbling. Yet the believer is to embrace this truth in all humility.
But not only does God want to humble the believer, but He humbles him that His child might receive His encouragement. Though the believer cannot supply anything needed to make a life godly, he can ever rely upon the sufficient grace of God. The same God who calls us to godly living is willing to share His resources with us that we might grow in godliness.
Man does not have what it takes.
Despite the great American heritage of self-sufficiency, man does not have what it takes. Such hubris is the way of the kingdom of man. Man will build the Tower of Babel and fly into the depths of space, but this does not demonstrate sufficiency for matters of any real importance. The sufficiency for real life comes from God. It is good to be humbled by our natural inabilities, to find that man was never able to please God after he fell from grace in the Garden.
We are new creatures.
The believer, though, who is a new creation in Christ, is designed to be a vessel to carry about the life and presence of the One who is always able to think and act righteously. The believer who recognizes his insufficiency is left in the best possible frame of mind. He is left depending daily upon the sufficiency of God in all things. That believer will be counting upon His resources and drawing upon God’s grace by faith. He will be ever depending, abiding, and looking unto Jesus.
God’s sufficiency is for godly living. We shall ever be learning what it means to live by the sufficiency of God.
Lord, forgive us for the many, many times in our striving and straining that we have tried to make the Christian life happen by our resources. Teach us how to trust in You. Make us to draw upon Your resources and give us faith to believe that they are fully sufficient for every challenge and opportunity—and especially for growth and service. We thank You for this glorious new covenant Lord. We love You. The more we know of You and the more we see Your handiwork, we come to love You and praise You and thank You that much more. In Your Son’s holy name. Amen.