FAILURE AND THE SPIRIT
Oh, to understand Your ways with man, as Moses did, rather that look on and marvel at Your acts toward him, as the Children of Israel did!
If we could but realize, through faith, just a few of Your ways with us:
1) Testing always comes before Blessing
2) Confidence in Christ comes out of Brokenness; “ We who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, in order that His life may be manifested through our mortal bodies”(2 Cor 4:11); Yes, His wisdom, His peace, love and joy, and His hope filling our personalities, regardless of the circumstances, no matter what!
3) Knowing the Truth, “I am the truth” Jesus said, does set us free from our self-made state of mental bondage. How blessed we are if we receive by faith the truth of:
4) The Cross always precedes Glory,
5) Humiliation comes before Exaltation
6) Suffering is a necessity before You establish us and cause our dreams to become reality, “And, after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him belongs the power forever”(1 Pet 5:10-11).
7) “Christ in us”(Col 1:27”), knowing, “We have this treasure (Christ in us) in earthen vessels (our bodies and flawed personalities) in order that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not of ourselves”(2 Cor. 4:7). Yes, You could have given each person who is born again a glorified body at the moment of conversion. To walk through walls, supernaturally appearing and disappearing, seems like a sure-fire way to successfully share the Gospel. “Hey, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and receive a body like mine!” But You knew the lost would attribute the power to the believer, not You, and cause the wrong kind of worship. So, You left us weak, frail, inadequate; dependent on Your Power that You might receive all the glory.
Yes, Lord, knowing these truths motivates true repentance, removes all self-centered condemnation (“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus”) and fills us with hopeful expectancy.