Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
We are not able in ourselves even to form a right thought, judge rightly, shape character, or think and work for God, but all ability to do so comes from God alone. No one can meet God's requirement of perfect obedience and holy character, keep the law, pardon or cleanse self, or justify self before God, for the law cannot empower and the whole family stands guilty, leaving all sufficiency in God. That sufficiency is Christ Himself and His perfect obedience received by genuine faith and daily abiding in Him, with the Holy Spirit guiding into all truth, bringing every thought into subjection to Christ, and giving efficiency for character building and victory. God makes those who trust Him able ministers of the new covenant, serving by the Spirit and not by own ability or judgment, giving tact, wisdom, and power for fruitful soul-winning while keeping them humble and dependent. To live by this, believers must continually renounce all self-trust, see utter helplessness, cling to Christ in faith, and guard against pride and self-sufficiency, which separate from God and leave labor without the Spirit.
Wording and Historical Setting
The denial reaches even to thinking anything as of self, so that no one has sufficiency in himself even in his own thoughts. That want of sufficiency includes forming thoughts and shaping character, for efficiency for character building does not come by own power. It includes judging rightly, for men have no sufficiency in themselves to think or judge rightly apart from God. It includes thinking and working for God and accomplishing spiritual work, since ability to think and work comes from God alone.
The letter was written to settle the minds of the Corinthian church about the gospel of Christ. Trouble and dissension had been caused by Judaizing teachers who exalted the law and the ceremonies above the gospel of Christ. They condemned Paul because he did not urge the ceremonies that pointed to Christ, ceremonies that lost their value at Christ's death.
Paul had such trust through Christ toward God that he looked to God and not to himself for sufficiency. That trust through Christ God-ward, with no sufficiency of self to think anything of self because sufficiency is of God, is to be taught in training young men for successful evangelistic work in winning souls to Christ. The faith and grace of the Corinthians was sufficient commendation of his ministry, for they were manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by Paul. That epistle was written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on fleshly tables of the heart.
God's gift of sufficiency makes men able ministers of the new covenant. Such ministers of righteousness are not sufficient of themselves for anything, but their sufficiency is of God. They serve by the Spirit rather than relying on the letter, and not through their own ability or judgment, with humility and fear about relying on self rather than feeling self-sufficient.
Helplessness and Divine Sufficiency
No person has ability in himself to do anything good, and no one can help himself spiritually, for apart from vital union with Christ nothing can be done. Self-deception and self-sufficiency separate the person from God as the source of strength, leaving natural tendencies to self-love, self-indulgence and sin to work a moral death that cannot be resisted without connection to Him. Human nature cannot meet God's requirement or keep the law even if it would, for the law demands a holy character and perfect obedience and perfect harmony with all its precepts in all relations of life under all circumstances and conditions, just as was required of Adam in Eden, tolerating no unholy thought and justifying no unlovely action. Because no one of himself can render what the law requires, the whole family stands guilty before the great moral standard, which cannot be lowered to meet fallen humanity and admits no compromise requiring less. It is not in the province of law to pardon the transgressor, acquit the guilty, cleanse the sinner, or give power to rise into a purer, holier atmosphere, so condemned sinners asking what to do to be saved find all sufficiency in God alone.
No one can vindicate or justify himself before God, and acceptance is not on own merits or capabilities but on acceptance of light from God that works with the believer to regulate conduct toward God in complete sanctification of mind and will by the infallible standard. This sufficiency from God is the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect obedience to the law of God. It is received by genuine faith and by continuing to receive Christ and confess Him as personal Saviour, being kept day by day by God's power in close relationship with Him. Efficiency for character building does not come from power to form thoughts or shape character of self, and victory over temptation cannot be gained by own power, but genuine faith is accompanied by the Spirit's work.
The Holy Spirit alone can guide into all truth, and His gracious presence and work filled Paul's heart and brought every thought into subjection to Christ, so that self was hidden and Christ was revealed and exalted. That same efficiency gives power for character building and victory over temptation, and when the Spirit is received Christ is present, every need is supplied, and believers have the mind of Christ. Christ Himself is the sufficiency, and God is the source of wisdom and sufficiency, with help and ability to carry the work forward intelligently coming from Jesus Christ. By making Christ the sufficiency and hanging the helpless soul upon Him, power comes to every soul, and the more of this power received the weaker the person feels in self alone, with no swelling pomposity, feeling God as strength and power and elevation and wisdom, so all glory is given to Him and every advance in light becomes praise.
Sufficiency for Gospel Ministry
To be accepted by God as an able minister of the gospel is the greatest honor, yet while there are many preachers there is a scarcity of able, holy ministers with Christ's love burning in the heart. A minister must not rely on his own ability or assume he is fit for the work, but when fully consecrated to God and aware of the solemn responsibility of the work he recognizes his insufficiency for it. Power and success in that work come from God alone, for an able minister has no sufficiency of himself to think anything as of himself, but his sufficiency is of God.
Those whom God blesses with ability, power, and success do not boast or become lifted up but acknowledge their entire and complete dependence upon God, realizing they have no power of themselves. Ministers lose their efficiency when they do not make God their trust and depend on His strength. God makes them able ministers of the new covenant, for their ability comes from Him and they are not sufficient or powerful in themselves.
God Himself is the minister's efficiency and fellow-worker, and Christ works in faithful servants to accomplish God's will, so the Creator's honor must not be given to human beings. He alone supplies the power and qualification that make service successful, and each mind must receive wisdom from Him. He gives tact and skill and understanding to those He calls to the ministry.
One who recognizes God as his efficiency, who has a true conception of the value of souls, and whose heart is filled with the love of Christ will be fruitful in benefiting the people for whom he labors, lifting the standard in new places, and converting souls. If after twelve months of evangelistic labor a man shows no fruit, no benefit to the people, no standard lifted in new places, and no souls converted, he should humble his heart before God and seek to know if he has mistaken his calling, and conference wages should be given to those who show fruit for their labor.
Christ is the canvasser's sufficiency, and consecrated workers depend on the Holy Spirit to use them as instruments. They are to present the truth with humble simplicity and let it bear its life-giving influence, rather than with worldly display or reliance on human resources or on their own ability.
Workers are not left comfortless to walk alone and do God's work in their own strength, for the Lord alone can do the work. In carrying out duties they can answer their sense of inability with faith in God's help. When resources are limited and the work is great, after using the means available with the best ability and judgment they can leave the rest with God, go forward, and trust Him to open the way. God alone can make His servants sufficient in Him, helping and sustaining them as they work, so they are to trust His help and wait patiently when they do not yet see the results they desire. When obstacles arise in presenting God's law and truth, workers are to seek God as their help and strength, pray for wisdom from Him, and go forward humbly, for He can open a way and give victories even when the way appears impossible. They must trust wholly in Him as their efficiency, with Jesus at their right hand to help them and angels of God going before them to prepare the way, as for the work to be done in New Zealand. Hope is in God and is made apparent only by manifesting entire dependence upon Him, and whatever has been done to advance the truth in Australia has been done through the efficiency of God who is mighty to save, though much more might have been accomplished had human agents cooperated with God more fully.
In a hard, strangely neglected field where the worker is left to struggle almost alone with few to sympathize or prepare the way, trust must be put not in man but in God, for this holds for every practical movement for the uplifting of humanity and the saving of souls. There Satan works with supernatural agencies to bar the way, and moves even professed believers to unite with him to make everything as hard as possible, setting men at variance, criticizing, disheartening and discouraging, and absorbing means to block other places. Unless the worker looks alone to God, trusting Him to move upon human agencies to do His work with fidelity, Satan will block the way. Difficulties that seem very large give the sincere worker stronger motives for perseverance and renewed exertion in God in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Cooperation with brethren is essential, but cooperation with Jesus Christ is more essential, and looking to God in faith with a contrite heart, in humility and dependence, with full surrender of soul, body and spirit, brings His blessing and strength so the worker will not be overcome by discouraging human influences.
No human being has wisdom and sufficiency in himself, but God is the Source of wisdom and sufficiency, and dependence must be wholly in God. No person should control another's conscience or come between God and His people, for each mind must receive wisdom from God. Human workers must not bind other people to themselves or narrow the work to their own particular ideas, because fastening minds to a human leader by controlling, telling them to do this and forbidding them to do that, commanding and dictating like an officer over soldiers, disconnects them from God as the Source of their sufficiency. Those who accept the truth are the property of Christ, not the property of man. Leaders placed in positions of trust as guardians over the flock of God must not act as dictators using arbitrary authority or set themselves as lords over God's heritage, for to do so is to be out of place, and that course has caused great mischief.
Every laborer for Christ has no sufficiency of himself, but when he feels that lack his sufficiency is in Jesus. Expecting counsel and wisdom from men, mortal and finite, brings only human help, while going to God for help and wisdom in faith never disappoints. State conference presidents have the same God as the General Conference president and must go to the Source of wisdom for themselves instead of depending on one man who must get his light from the same source. God gives special wisdom to those entrusted with important responsibilities if they walk humbly with Him, and He gives the same help to others who seek in the same spirit. When God places important responsibilities on a person, He fits that person to bear the burdens if sought in faith for strength, and when trust is put in His counsel He does not leave that person to finite judgment to make imperfect plans and decided failures.
Because God supplies sufficiency and is Himself their efficiency, business cares and commercial interests should not burden the mind of the gospel minister or the physician, for they are to be laborers together with God and the needed ability does not come from themselves but from God. The Lord is the first great Cause standing behind His work, including the work going on in Battle Creek, and He is the source of all power, all strength, and all sufficiency. God, not human ability, is the church's sufficiency, and as the church faces changing conditions and subtle satanic powers its members must depend on God, for clothed in the whole armor they can overcome every foe, including dangers not yet revealed.
That sufficiency is not given to gratify self, but to enable leading out in God's work, to have means to invest in work started in new places, and to help those who are cast down and oppressed to help themselves. Where this sufficiency is received and used in that way, the Lord makes those He supplies a blessing to others. The book was not produced through human strength, for God supported its writer and answered prayer by refreshing him to continue the work. All capabilities and talents are held in trust, for they do not originate with man but come from God and are to be consecrated to His service, and to the one who does this the Lord will give higher abilities. Christ is man's efficiency, and because human beings are used as His instruments to do His work, boasting is cautioned against.
Living by Dependence on God
Humility of mind and action acknowledges that there is no sufficiency in self even to form a thought, for all sufficiency is from God. Searching the heart, putting away sin, and correcting evil tendencies produce distrust of self and keep an abiding sense that sufficiency is of God, guarding the soul from vanity. Acceptance before God rests not on personal merits or capabilities but on receiving the light that comes from God, which works with the receiver to regulate conduct toward God in complete sanctification of mind and will by the infallible standard. No one can vindicate or justify self before God, and only the Holy Spirit can guide into all truth. Continuing to receive Christ and confessing Him as personal Saviour keeps the believer day by day by divine power in close relationship with God.
Help from Christ is received through true knowledge of self as a sinner, seeing utter helplessness, renouncing all self-trust, and laying hold on divine power with the grasp of faith. That renunciation belongs not only to the beginning of the Christian life but must be renewed at every advance heavenward by continual reaching of the heart after God, constant earnest confession of sin, and humbling of the soul before Him. Safety amid surrounding perils comes only by feeling weakness and clinging to Christ as mighty Deliverer, for self-deception and self-sufficiency separate from God the source of strength and leave natural tendencies to self-love, self-indulgence, and sin to work unresisted moral death. Dependence must be wholly in God, for no human being has wisdom and sufficiency in self, and only by that dependence is there growth in grace. By faith and the daily grace given, Christlike character is cultivated, growth proceeds into Christ the living Head, and completeness in Him is attained. Keeping closely linked to the Saviour, coming before God in humility yet with trusting belief that asking will be answered, is the way sufficiency and strength not created by humans are supplied.
God is sufficiency and present help in every time of need, both for victory in daily life and for bearing the message of mercy to others. Christ's help establishes believers in the teachings of Scripture so they can share them, while angels minister grace to speakers and hearers. Workers in God's cause have no sufficiency in themselves for thinking and working, and must depend wholly on God and guard against self-sufficiency. Trusting in self or making a god of self, with pride, selfishness, and all desire for self-exaltation, including seeking to be great speakers, preachers, or wonderful evangelists, places human agents where the Holy Spirit cannot work with their methods and plans and leaves the self-sufficient to mere human wisdom. Strength felt through success in debate can make labor unhelpful to God's cause.
Those who realize the dignity and elevated character of the message they bear hide in Christ, and their security and efficiency come from God. Learning this sufficiency means weighing spiritual condition in the light of the Word of God and prayerfully putting away every vein of selfishness in any course God has reproved. It means seeking God in humble prayer and watching lest Satan enter through an unconsecrated life to harm God's work in a time of great peril, heeding warnings about defects and deformities of character with earnest and zealous reform. Of self people are very weak with no sufficiency of their own, and God's strength must become theirs to go forward and be strong in the Lord. Living, active faith joins human weakness to divine power, and success depends on that connection with God, expressed in humbling self instead of seeking to humble brethren.
Feeling sufficient in self and lifting up the soul unto vanity, trusting own executive ability to guide through breakers to the harbor, leaves people to make their own way without God's help, for God cannot cooperate with them. Those weak and imperfect in themselves receive divine strength and enlightenment when they realize weakness and spiritual ignorance and submit way and will to God, praying humbly for a right estimate of men and subjects and waiting for divine guidance under the Holy Spirit. This self-sufficiency was shown at Minneapolis and in the offices at Battle Creek, where failure to pray and seek unity led to conflict, clashing, discourteous and unwise words, jesting and ridicule, lost time, lost souls, imperiled lives, and the heavenly record of untrustworthy when important interests are at stake, while every individual is still tested and every movement is made before the whole heavenly universe. Believers must leave the dangerous ground of placing themselves on the side of the one man who brought them light and truth and refusing harmony with brethren. Those supposing themselves cemented to a human teacher and tied up in separate bundles are not being sanctified through the truth and need reconversion as soon as possible, or their claimed conversion becomes a stumbling block to sinners.
Human beings must not trust themselves for a moment, for providential experience teaches personal weakness in order to end self-trust. When weak and inefficient and unable to lift up holy hands to God, hanging the helpless soul upon Christ as the sufficiency brings power to every soul. The more of this power received, the weaker the person feels in self alone, with no swelling pomposity, feeling God as strength and power and elevation and wisdom, so all glory is given to Him and every advance in light becomes praise. Deceptive human judgment and heated human passion are not to be exalted in God's work, and only those who live the truth in dependence on Christ become epistles of Christ known and read of all men. God alone is sufficiency for watching, guarding, disciplining children, and molding the young in the right manner, and without seeking His aid and counsel the task is hopeless. By prayer, by study of the Bible, and by earnest zeal parents may succeed nobly and be repaid a hundredfold, drawing all necessary knowledge from the open source of wisdom and ordering surroundings to favor formation of correct characters instead of gossip and anxiety about external appearance, while children are pointed to God as sufficiency for life with minds directed to high and holy objects.
We are not able in ourselves even to form a right thought, judge rightly, shape character, or think and work for God, but all ability to do so comes from God alone. No one can meet God's requirement of perfect obedience and holy character, keep the law, pardon or cleanse self, or justify self before God, for the law cannot empower and the whole family stands guilty, leaving all sufficiency in God. That sufficiency is Christ Himself and His perfect obedience received by genuine faith and daily abiding in Him, with the Holy Spirit guiding into all truth, bringing every thought into subjection to Christ, and giving efficiency for character building and victory. God makes those who trust Him able ministers of the new covenant, serving by the Spirit and not by own ability or judgment, giving tact, wisdom, and power for fruitful soul-winning while keeping them humble and dependent. To live by this, believers must continually renounce all self-trust, see utter helplessness, cling to Christ in faith, and guard against pride and self-sufficiency, which separate from God and leave labor without the Spirit.
Wording and Historical Setting
The denial reaches even to thinking anything as of self, so that no one has sufficiency in himself even in his own thoughts. That want of sufficiency includes forming thoughts and shaping character, for efficiency for character building does not come by own power. It includes judging rightly, for men have no sufficiency in themselves to think or judge rightly apart from God. It includes thinking and working for God and accomplishing spiritual work, since ability to think and work comes from God alone.
The letter was written to settle the minds of the Corinthian church about the gospel of Christ. Trouble and dissension had been caused by Judaizing teachers who exalted the law and the ceremonies above the gospel of Christ. They condemned Paul because he did not urge the ceremonies that pointed to Christ, ceremonies that lost their value at Christ's death.
Paul had such trust through Christ toward God that he looked to God and not to himself for sufficiency. That trust through Christ God-ward, with no sufficiency of self to think anything of self because sufficiency is of God, is to be taught in training young men for successful evangelistic work in winning souls to Christ. The faith and grace of the Corinthians was sufficient commendation of his ministry, for they were manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by Paul. That epistle was written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tables of stone but on fleshly tables of the heart.
God's gift of sufficiency makes men able ministers of the new covenant. Such ministers of righteousness are not sufficient of themselves for anything, but their sufficiency is of God. They serve by the Spirit rather than relying on the letter, and not through their own ability or judgment, with humility and fear about relying on self rather than feeling self-sufficient.
Helplessness and Divine Sufficiency
No person has ability in himself to do anything good, and no one can help himself spiritually, for apart from vital union with Christ nothing can be done. Self-deception and self-sufficiency separate the person from God as the source of strength, leaving natural tendencies to self-love, self-indulgence and sin to work a moral death that cannot be resisted without connection to Him. Human nature cannot meet God's requirement or keep the law even if it would, for the law demands a holy character and perfect obedience and perfect harmony with all its precepts in all relations of life under all circumstances and conditions, just as was required of Adam in Eden, tolerating no unholy thought and justifying no unlovely action. Because no one of himself can render what the law requires, the whole family stands guilty before the great moral standard, which cannot be lowered to meet fallen humanity and admits no compromise requiring less. It is not in the province of law to pardon the transgressor, acquit the guilty, cleanse the sinner, or give power to rise into a purer, holier atmosphere, so condemned sinners asking what to do to be saved find all sufficiency in God alone.
No one can vindicate or justify himself before God, and acceptance is not on own merits or capabilities but on acceptance of light from God that works with the believer to regulate conduct toward God in complete sanctification of mind and will by the infallible standard. This sufficiency from God is the righteousness of Christ, which is perfect obedience to the law of God. It is received by genuine faith and by continuing to receive Christ and confess Him as personal Saviour, being kept day by day by God's power in close relationship with Him. Efficiency for character building does not come from power to form thoughts or shape character of self, and victory over temptation cannot be gained by own power, but genuine faith is accompanied by the Spirit's work.
The Holy Spirit alone can guide into all truth, and His gracious presence and work filled Paul's heart and brought every thought into subjection to Christ, so that self was hidden and Christ was revealed and exalted. That same efficiency gives power for character building and victory over temptation, and when the Spirit is received Christ is present, every need is supplied, and believers have the mind of Christ. Christ Himself is the sufficiency, and God is the source of wisdom and sufficiency, with help and ability to carry the work forward intelligently coming from Jesus Christ. By making Christ the sufficiency and hanging the helpless soul upon Him, power comes to every soul, and the more of this power received the weaker the person feels in self alone, with no swelling pomposity, feeling God as strength and power and elevation and wisdom, so all glory is given to Him and every advance in light becomes praise.
Sufficiency for Gospel Ministry
To be accepted by God as an able minister of the gospel is the greatest honor, yet while there are many preachers there is a scarcity of able, holy ministers with Christ's love burning in the heart. A minister must not rely on his own ability or assume he is fit for the work, but when fully consecrated to God and aware of the solemn responsibility of the work he recognizes his insufficiency for it. Power and success in that work come from God alone, for an able minister has no sufficiency of himself to think anything as of himself, but his sufficiency is of God.
Those whom God blesses with ability, power, and success do not boast or become lifted up but acknowledge their entire and complete dependence upon God, realizing they have no power of themselves. Ministers lose their efficiency when they do not make God their trust and depend on His strength. God makes them able ministers of the new covenant, for their ability comes from Him and they are not sufficient or powerful in themselves.
God Himself is the minister's efficiency and fellow-worker, and Christ works in faithful servants to accomplish God's will, so the Creator's honor must not be given to human beings. He alone supplies the power and qualification that make service successful, and each mind must receive wisdom from Him. He gives tact and skill and understanding to those He calls to the ministry.
One who recognizes God as his efficiency, who has a true conception of the value of souls, and whose heart is filled with the love of Christ will be fruitful in benefiting the people for whom he labors, lifting the standard in new places, and converting souls. If after twelve months of evangelistic labor a man shows no fruit, no benefit to the people, no standard lifted in new places, and no souls converted, he should humble his heart before God and seek to know if he has mistaken his calling, and conference wages should be given to those who show fruit for their labor.
Christ is the canvasser's sufficiency, and consecrated workers depend on the Holy Spirit to use them as instruments. They are to present the truth with humble simplicity and let it bear its life-giving influence, rather than with worldly display or reliance on human resources or on their own ability.
Workers are not left comfortless to walk alone and do God's work in their own strength, for the Lord alone can do the work. In carrying out duties they can answer their sense of inability with faith in God's help. When resources are limited and the work is great, after using the means available with the best ability and judgment they can leave the rest with God, go forward, and trust Him to open the way. God alone can make His servants sufficient in Him, helping and sustaining them as they work, so they are to trust His help and wait patiently when they do not yet see the results they desire. When obstacles arise in presenting God's law and truth, workers are to seek God as their help and strength, pray for wisdom from Him, and go forward humbly, for He can open a way and give victories even when the way appears impossible. They must trust wholly in Him as their efficiency, with Jesus at their right hand to help them and angels of God going before them to prepare the way, as for the work to be done in New Zealand. Hope is in God and is made apparent only by manifesting entire dependence upon Him, and whatever has been done to advance the truth in Australia has been done through the efficiency of God who is mighty to save, though much more might have been accomplished had human agents cooperated with God more fully.
In a hard, strangely neglected field where the worker is left to struggle almost alone with few to sympathize or prepare the way, trust must be put not in man but in God, for this holds for every practical movement for the uplifting of humanity and the saving of souls. There Satan works with supernatural agencies to bar the way, and moves even professed believers to unite with him to make everything as hard as possible, setting men at variance, criticizing, disheartening and discouraging, and absorbing means to block other places. Unless the worker looks alone to God, trusting Him to move upon human agencies to do His work with fidelity, Satan will block the way. Difficulties that seem very large give the sincere worker stronger motives for perseverance and renewed exertion in God in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Cooperation with brethren is essential, but cooperation with Jesus Christ is more essential, and looking to God in faith with a contrite heart, in humility and dependence, with full surrender of soul, body and spirit, brings His blessing and strength so the worker will not be overcome by discouraging human influences.
No human being has wisdom and sufficiency in himself, but God is the Source of wisdom and sufficiency, and dependence must be wholly in God. No person should control another's conscience or come between God and His people, for each mind must receive wisdom from God. Human workers must not bind other people to themselves or narrow the work to their own particular ideas, because fastening minds to a human leader by controlling, telling them to do this and forbidding them to do that, commanding and dictating like an officer over soldiers, disconnects them from God as the Source of their sufficiency. Those who accept the truth are the property of Christ, not the property of man. Leaders placed in positions of trust as guardians over the flock of God must not act as dictators using arbitrary authority or set themselves as lords over God's heritage, for to do so is to be out of place, and that course has caused great mischief.
Every laborer for Christ has no sufficiency of himself, but when he feels that lack his sufficiency is in Jesus. Expecting counsel and wisdom from men, mortal and finite, brings only human help, while going to God for help and wisdom in faith never disappoints. State conference presidents have the same God as the General Conference president and must go to the Source of wisdom for themselves instead of depending on one man who must get his light from the same source. God gives special wisdom to those entrusted with important responsibilities if they walk humbly with Him, and He gives the same help to others who seek in the same spirit. When God places important responsibilities on a person, He fits that person to bear the burdens if sought in faith for strength, and when trust is put in His counsel He does not leave that person to finite judgment to make imperfect plans and decided failures.
Because God supplies sufficiency and is Himself their efficiency, business cares and commercial interests should not burden the mind of the gospel minister or the physician, for they are to be laborers together with God and the needed ability does not come from themselves but from God. The Lord is the first great Cause standing behind His work, including the work going on in Battle Creek, and He is the source of all power, all strength, and all sufficiency. God, not human ability, is the church's sufficiency, and as the church faces changing conditions and subtle satanic powers its members must depend on God, for clothed in the whole armor they can overcome every foe, including dangers not yet revealed.
That sufficiency is not given to gratify self, but to enable leading out in God's work, to have means to invest in work started in new places, and to help those who are cast down and oppressed to help themselves. Where this sufficiency is received and used in that way, the Lord makes those He supplies a blessing to others. The book was not produced through human strength, for God supported its writer and answered prayer by refreshing him to continue the work. All capabilities and talents are held in trust, for they do not originate with man but come from God and are to be consecrated to His service, and to the one who does this the Lord will give higher abilities. Christ is man's efficiency, and because human beings are used as His instruments to do His work, boasting is cautioned against.
Living by Dependence on God
Humility of mind and action acknowledges that there is no sufficiency in self even to form a thought, for all sufficiency is from God. Searching the heart, putting away sin, and correcting evil tendencies produce distrust of self and keep an abiding sense that sufficiency is of God, guarding the soul from vanity. Acceptance before God rests not on personal merits or capabilities but on receiving the light that comes from God, which works with the receiver to regulate conduct toward God in complete sanctification of mind and will by the infallible standard. No one can vindicate or justify self before God, and only the Holy Spirit can guide into all truth. Continuing to receive Christ and confessing Him as personal Saviour keeps the believer day by day by divine power in close relationship with God.
Help from Christ is received through true knowledge of self as a sinner, seeing utter helplessness, renouncing all self-trust, and laying hold on divine power with the grasp of faith. That renunciation belongs not only to the beginning of the Christian life but must be renewed at every advance heavenward by continual reaching of the heart after God, constant earnest confession of sin, and humbling of the soul before Him. Safety amid surrounding perils comes only by feeling weakness and clinging to Christ as mighty Deliverer, for self-deception and self-sufficiency separate from God the source of strength and leave natural tendencies to self-love, self-indulgence, and sin to work unresisted moral death. Dependence must be wholly in God, for no human being has wisdom and sufficiency in self, and only by that dependence is there growth in grace. By faith and the daily grace given, Christlike character is cultivated, growth proceeds into Christ the living Head, and completeness in Him is attained. Keeping closely linked to the Saviour, coming before God in humility yet with trusting belief that asking will be answered, is the way sufficiency and strength not created by humans are supplied.
God is sufficiency and present help in every time of need, both for victory in daily life and for bearing the message of mercy to others. Christ's help establishes believers in the teachings of Scripture so they can share them, while angels minister grace to speakers and hearers. Workers in God's cause have no sufficiency in themselves for thinking and working, and must depend wholly on God and guard against self-sufficiency. Trusting in self or making a god of self, with pride, selfishness, and all desire for self-exaltation, including seeking to be great speakers, preachers, or wonderful evangelists, places human agents where the Holy Spirit cannot work with their methods and plans and leaves the self-sufficient to mere human wisdom. Strength felt through success in debate can make labor unhelpful to God's cause.
Those who realize the dignity and elevated character of the message they bear hide in Christ, and their security and efficiency come from God. Learning this sufficiency means weighing spiritual condition in the light of the Word of God and prayerfully putting away every vein of selfishness in any course God has reproved. It means seeking God in humble prayer and watching lest Satan enter through an unconsecrated life to harm God's work in a time of great peril, heeding warnings about defects and deformities of character with earnest and zealous reform. Of self people are very weak with no sufficiency of their own, and God's strength must become theirs to go forward and be strong in the Lord. Living, active faith joins human weakness to divine power, and success depends on that connection with God, expressed in humbling self instead of seeking to humble brethren.
Feeling sufficient in self and lifting up the soul unto vanity, trusting own executive ability to guide through breakers to the harbor, leaves people to make their own way without God's help, for God cannot cooperate with them. Those weak and imperfect in themselves receive divine strength and enlightenment when they realize weakness and spiritual ignorance and submit way and will to God, praying humbly for a right estimate of men and subjects and waiting for divine guidance under the Holy Spirit. This self-sufficiency was shown at Minneapolis and in the offices at Battle Creek, where failure to pray and seek unity led to conflict, clashing, discourteous and unwise words, jesting and ridicule, lost time, lost souls, imperiled lives, and the heavenly record of untrustworthy when important interests are at stake, while every individual is still tested and every movement is made before the whole heavenly universe. Believers must leave the dangerous ground of placing themselves on the side of the one man who brought them light and truth and refusing harmony with brethren. Those supposing themselves cemented to a human teacher and tied up in separate bundles are not being sanctified through the truth and need reconversion as soon as possible, or their claimed conversion becomes a stumbling block to sinners.
Human beings must not trust themselves for a moment, for providential experience teaches personal weakness in order to end self-trust. When weak and inefficient and unable to lift up holy hands to God, hanging the helpless soul upon Christ as the sufficiency brings power to every soul. The more of this power received, the weaker the person feels in self alone, with no swelling pomposity, feeling God as strength and power and elevation and wisdom, so all glory is given to Him and every advance in light becomes praise. Deceptive human judgment and heated human passion are not to be exalted in God's work, and only those who live the truth in dependence on Christ become epistles of Christ known and read of all men. God alone is sufficiency for watching, guarding, disciplining children, and molding the young in the right manner, and without seeking His aid and counsel the task is hopeless. By prayer, by study of the Bible, and by earnest zeal parents may succeed nobly and be repaid a hundredfold, drawing all necessary knowledge from the open source of wisdom and ordering surroundings to favor formation of correct characters instead of gossip and anxiety about external appearance, while children are pointed to God as sufficiency for life with minds directed to high and holy objects.