In Whose Strength?

By Cal Cook

It’s a mystery to me, how God will work in people’s lives differently. For some He immediately calls into a deep life changing transformation and in others it seems to take a long while. You can make a good scriptural argument that it is in accordance with your faith that God works…where there is deep faith there is deep transformation and where there is shallow faith there is shallow transformation. So the apparent difference in God’s work in the lives of others has more to do with the people’s willingness to transform than God’s desire for them to…

Yet, does that deny the Sovereignty of God? I don’t believe so…I believe God is still sovereign despite our free will, that he has the ability through supreme knowledge and power to bring about His will and still allow ours to be free. I base this in part on my own experience and in part on scripture. Paul is a man who saw a dramatic transformation in his life. He went from being the persecutor to the persecuted because of his following Jesus. He gave up great authority from the Jewish High Council to do just the opposite of what they told him to do. Consequently he was beaten and shipwrecked and stoned eventually leading to his imprisonment and death. If he would have only recanted and denied Jesus he could have been set free, but he didn’t.

Now if that was all by the sole direction of God and Paul had no part in the role laid out for him why does he write?

Romans 7:15; 24 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

To be clear he is obviously not writing about being controlled by God, but rather being controlled by sin! So here is this man of God, transformed so dramatically that even his name is changed struggling with his inability to do what God has commanded him to do! Doing instead what he knows is against God’s desire for him…it’s a mystery. I praise god for this mystery captured for me to read and contemplate and pray over! For it allows me to realize…I’m not the only one.

I’m not the only one desiring to do what I know God has called me to do, yet unable to carry it out! I’m not the only one struggling with this body of flesh that is so prone to selfishness and gratification. I’m not the only wretched man! I know in my heart that it is not my inability to follow God’s commands but rather my inability to submit to His will. For if I were able to stand up and do what I know is right by just trying harder...it would be for my glory and not Christ’s. Do you see it? If my being a better Christian were a matter of my effort then it is of me.

So what am I saying then we should all stop trying to do better? Heavens no! But rather when we are tempted we turn to Christ’s strength not our own. Sure we purposely should avoid things that we know will tempt us, yet when we find ourselves there we pray for the Holy Spirits strength instead of relying on our own. Easier said than done…I know!

Paul writes the Church in Galatia and warns them about turning away from Grace and turning back to the Law. He makes an effort to show that His conversion was of God not of man and that the Good News he preached was as well. It’s unclear of all of the things that were being said about him, but it is clear where Paul gives the Glory.

Galatians 1:23-24 All they knew was that people were saying, “The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the very faith he tried to destroy!” And they praised God because of me.

May others praise God for you…and me.