Rediscover the Bible for Life

An All-Sufficient God

By Dennis Lee

When I was in several business partnerships, a large deal came through that was a financial windfall. I remember saying in front of my partner, “Thank God,” which he took offense at. He said, “Don’t thank God, I had a hand in accomplishing this.”

When I think about it, most people would take offense at giving credit where they believe credit is not due. You might call it the sin of self-sufficiency.

People also take offense when they read what the Apostle Paul said.

“Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God.” (2 Corinthians 3:5)

We think that we’re were the ones who got our education, our job, our promotions, our possessions and wealth, and we did so without God’s help seeing that we never asked for it.

When we tend to think that it’s all about us; when we imply by our deeds and words that Jesus Christ really isn’t all that much and His promises really aren’t as good as compared to the world’s, why are we so surprised when people are more interested in learning about the world than they are about Christ?

What we end up doing is trying to match God’s promises and His word to our behaviors, and we come to the unbearable truth that we can’t do it. There’s absolutely no way we can match an appropriate inner response with proper outer behavior.

This is what the Apostle Paul goes on to tell us in the next verse.

“Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Corinthians 3:6)

So it all hinges on an appropriate inner response, which in nothing less than yielding to a new source of help, the Lord God, for He truly is sufficient to meet every need.

Think of it in this way, with a flip of a switch we can turn on or turn off the flow of electricity into our homes. In the same way we have access to all of God’s resources as well. The Holy Spirit and His resources are available anytime, but we can cut off His resources by an intentional act of our will, just as we can turn off the light in the room and plunge it into darkness.

We didn’t disconnect ourselves from the source of power, it’s always there, but we can determine its flow.

And so God is sufficient to meet every one of our needs, but it’s our responsibility to make the connection, that is, to connect to the sufficiency of God.