Meditations from 2 Corinthians: Part 2

            “God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph.1:3)   In the first part we considered how one of those blessings was seen in God’s work of bringing us into a new relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.  Without God coming towards us, shining His light into our hearts, we would never have come to Him.

            As we think about God’s plan and purpose for our lives, we can see God’s blessings.  God had His plans for us even before we were conceived.   Jeremiah was told that he had been set apart for God’s work before he was conceived (Jer.1:5).  Paul saw God’s purpose for him having been in God’s mind from his birth (Gal.1:15).  God set these men apart for His service before they were even conceived; their call came at an appropriate moment at the right time in God’s plan.

1. Our call and gifting is of God

            God is sovereign, let us never forget that.  He not only is the Lord to whom we owe our allegiance, but also the general who directs the battle.  He sees how the battle is going, He knows where the needs are, and He equips with appropriate gifts for the particular tasks He gives to His servants.

            Paul knew that God had a task for Him to do and a time table for him to do it in.  He was privileged to be given the general plan of God’s work at his conversion, although he had to wait some ten years before he could really set out on the task God had given him.  So in chapter 1 verse 1, Paul could say that he was an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God.  This had been God’s plan for Paul right from his birth, but the time came when God was ready to use him.  So it is with us.  God has a plan and a purpose for each of us.  That call will be different for each one of us.  Each of us has received a gift for the work and purpose God has planned for us.  As we respond to the doors of opportunity God opens for us we begin to see the gift/s we have received and more fully can appreciate God purpose for our lives.

            In Paul’s case his gifting was for his life work, but God gave Titus a gift for a particular purpose (8:16). God gave him a heart and a concern for the Corinthians like Paul had, and so he was eager to go and visit them there.   

            The Macedonian Christians also experienced God’s grace, so that “in keeping with God’s will” (8:5) they were able to give themselves to the Lord first, and then to the ministry that Paul was involved in collecting for the saints in Jerusalem.  Because it is the grace of God that enables us to be involved in God’s work, whatever it may be, “God is able to make all grace abound to [us], so that in all things at all times, having all that we need, [we] will abound in every good work” (9:8).

2. Our sufficiency is of God (ch.3:5)

            The word in the NIV is  ‘competent’ or ‘competency’, that is, capable of doing what has been given us to do.  Do we believe that to be true for us as well?  He enables us to carry out the work he has given us to do.  But I like the word ‘sufficiency’ which is used in the ESV.  It gives the idea of not needing anything else.  We have all we need.  We are sufficiently provided for.  That provision for performing the will of God to which we have been called is sufficient, no more is needed.  What an encouragement.  What a blessing.  We don’t need to worry, but only trust in the provision that God has made available to us.

            The next verse tells us that God has made us competent, that is capable, to be ministers of the new covenant.  He has qualified us by making us able to carry the message of the new covenant to others.  We have a great message – the good news about Jesus and the resurrection, and with His sufficiency we are made competent servants, enabled by God through the Holy Spirit to fulfil God’s call on our life.

 3. Our service is of God (ch.4:7)

            As we noted in part one, this message of the new covenant has been entrusted to us who are weak, earthen vessels.  Although we have been made competent to carry it out and we have the sufficiency of an all-powerful God at work in and through us, this message has been given to us who are weak, often fail, and are very dependent upon God.  Why is that?  It is so that the work will be seen to have been God’s doing rather than us.  It is His work, and although we respond to that invitation of being included in His purposes through His calling and enabling He will get the glory.  If we can see this blessing of God that enables us to serve Him in this way, it will take the pressure off us to perform.

            Not only are we the vessels into which this message has been entrusted, but we have also been given the power and strength to carry out all that God has called us to.  Paul felt his weakness as chapter 12 highlights, but Paul can say, “yet by God’s power we will live with him to serve you” (13:3-4).  This is the promise that the power of God will be at work in us as He was in Paul because He lives in us as we serve together with Him.

To be concluded.