Charles Price illustrated that we are to live the Christian life by giving God our weakness and depending on His strength. We don't sit passively waiting for God to do everything for us, nor do we work for God. We work hand-in-hand with Him.
"My strength is made perfect in weakness," the Lord told Paul (2 Corinthians 12:9), who went on to say that for this reason, he would boast in his own weaknesses.
...Be honest -- has this statement not sometimes struck you as the tiniest bit outrageous? I have weaknesses that have been the bane of my existence. My heaviest burdens can be traced largely to my weaknesses, flaws, and inadequacies. I should boast in these things?
A picture came to me today of how this divine teamwork operates. Paul's comment makes perfect sense when you look at it this way.
Picture a simple machine, in which a few parts work together to perform a task. By themselves, the parts normally can't do anything. Place some wheels and an axle on the ground, and they just sit there. Put them together and apply force, and something remarkable happens.*
In effect, what God means when He says "My strength is made perfect in weakness" is, cooperate with Me -- trust Me, and do as I ask -- and I will use you to accomplish My perfect purposes, not in your strength but My own.
When a wheel or axle has its own agenda, the results are not pretty. No, a wheel or axle's purpose is fulfilled in submission to a higher agenda. Its weakness, so to speak,
is its strength.
Whatever repeatedly returns to overwhelm me, whatever defeats me day after day, I must see this as a potential ally, because it reveals my weakness in all its glory. And my weakness, submitted to Christ, becomes a conduit for His transcendent power.
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*For how this something remarkable happens, click here.