The End of Your Resources

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Romans 7:15

Have you ever felt this way? Have you ever seen a zealous, eager young Christian or older Christian desperately trying to do something for God and ending up after a while so discouraged and defeated that he just wants to quit? In fact, he probably does. But that is a very hopeful stage. Jesus said that those who are poor in spirit and have come to the end of their own resources are blessed (Matthew 5:3). Why? That is the time when God can give you something. When you have come to the end of your own resources, then he can give you his. That is why the Old Covenant is, Nothing coming from God, everything coming from me, while the New Covenant is, Everything coming from God, nothing coming from me.

You only have to look at yourself to see how much of your life is lived in that Old Covenant. You expect success by virtue of something resident in you: your ancestry, your training, your personality, your good looks or something like that. This attitude produces the kind of person that reckons on his resources: I've got what it takes, I can do that. Now he may be very modest in his language. We learn all kinds of little subtle tricks to hide this kind of egoism. We say, I have never really had any special training for that, but I have had some experience in it, and I will do my best. Thus we are subtly saying to people, I have got what it takes. Or we look at the demands, the specific problem, the situation we are asked to enter into or perform, and we say, I don't have what it takes. I can't do that. Don't ask me to do a thing like that. I am one of those people that was behind the door when the gifts were passed out, and I just can't do anything like that. But who are you looking at when you say something like that? Yourself! You are reckoning on your un-resources but your eye is fixed on the same person, yourself. So both responses are wrong. One view focuses on our power, our abilities, our experience, while the other view focuses on our un-resources, our inabilities, our inexperience — but both fix the focus on ourselves.

Forgive, me, Father, for the times I rely on myself rather than you. Teach me to reckon on my un-resources.