Saturday: Adequate When Attached to Adequacy
WEEK 23
SATURDAY
ADEQUATE WHEN ATTACHED TO ADEQUACY
1 Corinthians 15:57-58
A religious writer tells of a woman who bought a jeep that was advertised to get you out of any hole; she found that when she got the jeep into sand up to the hub, it refused to get her out. She was angry and disgusted when someone came up and reminded her that there was a fourth gear that she had not used. She used it and got out. The writer insists that there is always that unused fourth gear, the tapping of lower levels of power. A good illustration and something in it, but it is pure humanism and leaves you with your eyes on yourself, hunting for that fourth clutch to pull you out. It is self-salvation.
That is not the atmosphere of the Acts. They were not looking at their own inner resources; they were looking at Christ. They were not introspective; they were receptive. Suppose the electric bulb should say, “Look how I shine; the resources are within me. I’ll stand in my own right and be independent. I’ll unscrew myself from the bondage of this socket.” That bulb would die. It remains a light as long as it is attached and receptive. Suppose the faucet should say, “Look what comes out of me. I’m self-sufficient. I have resources within me. I’ll stand in my own right. I don’t need to be attached to this pipe.” It would be as dry as dry! If the rose should say: “Look at my beauty. I have drawn this beauty from myself. I don’t need to be attached to this ugly earth, for I’m heavenly in myself.” And suppose it should pull itself loose to be free and lovelier! The result is certain; it would be withered by its self-sufficient pride!
Everything and everybody are dependent, except God. And the more we acknowledge that dependence and become receptive, the more we live; when we become receptive all out, then we live abundantly. We master inadequacy by becoming adequate in God. We are not able but enabled. “In him who strengthens me, I am able for anything” (Phil 4:13 MNT). Note “in him”—in myself little; in him everything! My adequacy is to be adequately adjusted to Jesus.
O Jesus, I thank you that in you I am able for anything. So let me be perfectly adjusted to you, so that I’ll be able to be perfectly adequate for anything. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I am adequate for everything because God’s adequacy covers everything.