And God is able to make all grace [every favor and earthly blessing] come in abundance to you, so that you may always [under all circumstances, regardless of the need] have complete sufficiency in everything [being completely self-sufficient in Him], and have an abundance for every good work and act of charity. 2 Corinthians 9:8 AMP
Every favor and earthly blessing… that sounds pretty amazing, doesn’t it? Under all circumstances, regardless of the need… didn’t I just write about circumstances a couple weeks ago? Being completely self-sufficient in Him… um, what?
I went through several years of reading through one self-help book after another in the hopes that I would become the best version of who I could possibly be. I was a single mom at the time and was still unwilling to pick up a Bible. Come to think of it, I didn’t even have a Bible in my home. Every single book that I read made good points but fell flat in one way or another. They just seemed so powerless.
Most of that powerlessness that jumped off the pages of the many self-help fails stemmed from my own feelings of inadequacy and powerlessness. I was a single mom, I couldn’t count on child support, and my paycheck didn’t last long enough to see the next paycheck. I had nothing to contribute to any help that came from self, so there was definitely no hope of self-sufficiency.
That is part of the beauty found in this verse. There’s no hope of self-sufficiency… without Him.
Without Him, there is no chance of having every favor and earthly blessing (in abundance or otherwise). But with Him – can you imagine?
Without God we have nothing. We have no hope for today, no hope for tomorrow, and no hope for eternity.
A lot of people brag about being self-sufficient, but they actually just have a really bad understanding of what the word means. To be self-sufficient is to not require anything outside of ourselves. We might know people who are self-sufficient in their food production (no need for a grocery budget), but they aren’t truly self-sufficient. There are so many outside things (weather is just 1 of many) that play a role in their food production that they cannot ever be self-sufficient. True self-sufficiency is only found in God because He is the only One to ever truly be self-sufficient.
The Israelites were never self-sufficient, were they? They were, they are, God’s chosen people, but they’ve never been self-sufficient. I remember thinking how cruel God was to have rescued His people from slavery only to force them to wander through the desert for 40 years. From one spot to the next, over and over. All because they didn’t think they could take the land. Just like in my self-help book years, they had the wrong mindset.
The world is constantly pointing us to look at ourselves, and God is always trying to have us look to Him. The Israelites didn’t consider God and His sufficiency when scoping out the Promised Land. The land of plenty and they came up with excuses and saw themselves lacking. We shake our heads when we read about the stupid, such obvious mistakes of people in the Bible, yet we do the exact same thing.
We see the hurt in the world and consider the problem too big. We see the medical reports and all we can see are the giants in the land. We look at our finances and decide that we can’t do what we know we are called to do because it seems impossible. And like the Israelites, we don’t seem to take into account Who we find our self-sufficiency in.
Do we believe that God wants us to lead a life of defeat, or did He call us to be more than conquerors (Romans 8:37)? Did He call us to barely get by or did He promise a supply of abundance (2 Corinthians 9:8, Deuteronomy 30:9)? Did He come to leave us sick and dying or did He come to heal and save (John 10:10, Matthew 4:23)?
Do we believe that we are completely self-sufficient in Him, or do we consider this verse to not be true? (This is a reality check for me, too.)
Like the Israelites, I find that I’m not trusting God the way I should. I’m not trusting that if He leads me to it, He’ll lead me through it. I’m not trusting that the giants will fall because I don’t believe that God has really given me the land. That’s what it boils down to: do I trust Him?
If we’re asked if we trust Him, the autoreply is typically a yes, but if we don’t believe He’ll do what He says He’ll do, then why would we say we trust Him? How can we trust Him for the really big thing that we can’t see – our salvation – if we can’t seem to trust Him for our healing, our finances, or our provision?
God had to take the children of Israel back to basics, even after the miracles they saw in their being freed from slavery. Sure, they were in the desert for 40 years, close to the Promised Land, but not allowed to step foot in it. Instead, they experienced getting to know that God was their Provider.
He provided all of their food and water – not some, but all, and they had more than enough (God even made the water sweet for them when they complained!). The clothes and shoes they had never wore out while they were in the desert – for 40 years! Not to mention that there were a couple million people and they also had livestock.
The desert time had to come for them to find their self-sufficiency in Him. I bet the mindset of the people who crossed the Jordan to take the Promised Land was a completely different mindset than those who were liberated from Egypt. And the covenant we have is even better than what they had.
Every favor and earthly blessing… under all circumstances regardless of the need… being completely self-sufficient in Him…
It’s okay to be wandering the desert. Just imagine how awesome crossing the Jordan will be!