Monday, August 29 - Jody

Today's reading from the Chronological OT/NT Reading Plan is 2 Chronicles 10-12, 2 Corinthians 3

Happy Monday Everyone,

⁴ We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. ⁵ It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. ⁶ He has enabled us to be ministers of his new covenant. This is a covenant not of written laws, but of the Spirit. The old written covenant ends in death; but under the new covenant, the Spirit gives life.
2 Corinthians 3:4-6

This verse is a reminder of what I've been really "getting" over the last couple of months of this Bible blog and my own personal growth. We are NOT qualified in our own right to be anything other than His children. We don't deserve the blessings in our lives and we most definitely don't have what it takes in our own strength to be deserving of God's love. But "Our qualification comes from GOD".

The second part of this passage that resonates with me is that relationship is of the Spirit and not written laws. If we are following God to the best of OUR ability, according to how and what the law tells us - it ends in death. However, if we embrace the new covenant and rely on God as our qualifier - we get life.

But looking more closely at this passage - the intent of it is how we minister to others! How often I get caught up in feeling unworthy to share my faith because I'm stuck in my own human errors. Who am I to tell of the victorious power of God when I am still bound by sin?

I love what John MacArthur says:
Take the Word of God away from me, take the Spirit of God away from me, I have nothing to say. The truth is not in me no matter how intelligent I might be, no matter how brilliant, no matter how skilled oratorically, apart from divine revelation and the impartation of the Spirit of God in my life, I know nothing, I have nothing definitive to say about the spiritual dimension, about reality, about God, about ultimate and eternal truth. I'm not here because I'm a clever speaker. I'm not here because am a learned individual. I'm here because God has placed me here and God has humbled me before His truth and the power of His Spirit and the truth and the Spirit bring to you what God wants you to hear.
Paul is saying there isn't even anything in my life that I can reason properly. I don't have the ability. You take the Bible away from someone like me, take the Holy Spirit away from me and I'm the world's biggest ignoramus. I'm just like everybody else poking around out there trying to figure out what's going on. I don't have any answers. Paul says I wouldn't even reason anything out of myself about anything.

And this my friends, is why we are doing this blog! It's not about anything we have to teach each other, but to grow in His Word and step outside of our own reasoning, to share God's work.

Tomorrow's passage:   2 Chronicles 13-14, 2 Corinthians 4