106 - Our Adequacy In Christ

2 Corinthians 3:4-6 NASB

Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

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When we were in the world, we strove to be adequate, to feel good about ourselves in what we thought and in what we did. We worked hard to gain this world and be found worthy. Yet in putting our hope in the temporary, we missed the mark of what is truly important, our internal makings; the heart, soul, mind, and spirit, what is eternal and will never pass. This is the essence of who we are, created by God in His image. When we acknowledge and understand this truth, it transforms our perspective, our perception, and our minds, changing the entirety of our lives forever.

Who we are will never be defined by what we think of ourselves according to this world. It is not by anything we accomplish, possess, or do, no matter how great. God has created us so that the world’s external validations will never satisfy the inadequacies we feel. We cannot rest in them but instead must reach out to Him alone who can make us adequate. Who we are, our eternal, spiritual selves, comes from the Lord and not from man, and nothing can take that away. Since our identity depends on Him and comes from Him, we can be secure in how we see ourselves, in the light of Christ alone who has made us new.

We have viewed ourselves long enough through this world’s perception of what is right. This kind of worldly validation rests on circumstances that shift with the tides of time. In them we find no adequacy to put our minds at ease or to secure our hearts before God, because they are transient. But God is not transient. His thoughts toward us are based on the unchangeable fact that Christ, through His life and sacrifice, has now made us secure, immovable, and steadfast.

Once and for all, our security is in Christ, who is steadfast in His love for us despite what is external. Insecurities based on comparing ourselves to others and conforming to the pattern of this world are not a part of our new eternal identity. It is God who justifies us and redeems us, giving us a standing and position that cannot be compared with anything this world offers.

Our worth as Christians does not come from following rules and regulations that make us feel good or bad, but through freedom and trust in the Spirit, who works in and through us. The letter of the law, which causes one to feel self-righteous or condemned before God, does not produce the heart He desires. It does not submit to God, nor can it do so. It is a self-prescribed righteousness that does not align with the righteousness of God, which is by faith. Through Christ we have been made righteous and holy so that our life in the Spirit, far exceeding what any law could ever accomplish, may be lived out in genuine and authentic love for God and for one another.

In the adequacy that comes from God, we are freed to live as He created us to be. Once we were bound and constrained, thinking only of ourselves and our standing before God based on our own self-righteousness. But God has made us truly righteous through the work of His Son so that we no longer fix our eyes on ourselves but set our focus on Him. He is our righteousness, which comes only through Him and not from ourselves. We are free indeed, with adequacy to live out His plan for our lives, to have a pure and clean conscience before Him, and to shine the light of His love into the world, not our own light, but His.