We are confident of all this because of our great trust in God through Christ. It is not that we think we are qualified to do anything on our own. Our qualification comes from God. He has enabled us to be ministers of His new covenant. . .
2 Corinthians 3:4-6
What qualifies us for this task? What qualified Paul for the task? Or we should really ask Who? “Nothing good dwells in me.“ ”Who is equal or up to the task?” It really has nothing to do with us and everything to do with Him who called us. He calls us and He enables us to be ministers of His new covenant. He also qualifies us to be living letters. A living, walking, talking letter of His.
Remember that there has been all this talk about “who are apostles and who aren’t?” Paul returns to this matters and says our qualification doesn’t come from us or from you or anyone else. He sets us apart to be living letters for him. But what qualifies us to be so. Our authenticity! Picking up on Paul’s comments from yesterday we need to realise that we do indeed become a living letter for Him when the inside and the outside match. In a word, a true plax, one whose outer envelope matches the inner message.
When the inner and outer life have been brought into unity it always shows. Will 85% truth do? Truth is absolute, something is either the whole truth or it is not truth at all. Pontius Pilate never asked a more important question. “What is truth?” Jesus gave the perfect answer. He didn’t utter a single word. Jesus said in another place I am the way, the truth and the life. (John 14:6) Jesus didn’t just speak truths, he was the TRUTH. We would have given Pilate a very impressive statement – all quite scriptural and correct. Pilate needed to recognize the truth standing in front of him.
When Charles Finney toured a textile mill in New York State. As he walked through the mill he approached a woman operating a loom. As he came toward her, she stopped her work. As he came closer she began to tremble. As he came still closer, she erupted in tears and finally fell to her knees and cried out to God for mercy. Finney had not yet spoken a word. Ponder this.
Without Christ we are nothing. Another of Ian’s stories: Yehiel Dinur, was a Jew who survived Auschwitz. Dinur was brought face to face with Adolf Eichmann during the Nuremburg trials. That moment of confrontation was watched by the media. What would happen when Dinur met Eichmann again? All eyes were watching. Dinur broke down sobbing. Because he was confronted with a monster? No! Because he remembered the hatred? No! Because he saw the incarnate evil in Eichman’s face? No. Because it brought back memories? No! Dinur when asked said, “Because “he was just like me. I expected a madman but he is like me.” The horrifying thing is that Eichmann was not a monster, it is that he was ordinary. Like you and me!
Enough pontificating for today. Are you qualified? Remember our qualification comes from God. This is why His imputed righteous is so important.
To decide to tolerate one deceit is to violate the whole truth.
Plato
By confining truth to a small verbal part of our lives we condemn ourselves to being fragmented and full of internal contradictions, which is to say we condemn ourselves to being untrue.
Art Katz
I don’t have to know all truth; I have to be true, inside and out.
Ian Vail