Yes You Can't

Perhaps the irony is not lost in the fact that the writer of a blog entitled "With Everything" would find "everything" competing for thinking and writing time. So I do apologize for not keeping up with the task set before me and being so divided. In this I would ask the prayer of those perusing this small nook of the internet for clarity of focus and dedication to the pursuit of Truth that the Holy Spirit has lain on my heart.

I have been meditating this week on a passage of Scripture found in the book of 2 Corinthians. This is what the Bible says, "But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?" (2 Corinthians 2:14-16, ESV). The Apostle Paul concludes his thought a few verses by stating, "Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3:5-6, ESV).

Think about your past week in light of this Scriptural promise; no matter what your week was like, the Bible says that in the midst of it God in Christ was leading you in a triumphal procession and spreading the fragrant aroma of Christ to God to those around you! This is a stunning claim -- for me, this passage comes in the light of the unexpected and sudden diagnosis and subsequent death of a dear friend and man I deeply admired, John Miles. However, our own perception of reality does not negate the Truth of what the Bible says is our actual reality "In Christ."

The picture given here by the Apostle is that of a Roman triumphal procession given for the populace by a victorious general or emperor. The conquering official would lead a procession to the Senate consisting of the captured leader, captured men and women and children, animals, possessions, captured religious tokens, etc. This spectacle was designed to humiliate the defeated and to exalt the victorious. The surviving "Arch of Titus" in Rome depicts the victory procession of Hebrew captives and the objects from the temple including the great menorah and other temple treasures following the destruction of the temple and Jerusalem in 70 A.D. This is the idea stated to be a True fact by the Apostle Paul. The Bible says we are always led in triumph by God in Christ.

Furthermore the Bible says that "we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life . . ." Notice that the Bible does not give us a choice in the matter. If we take the name of Christ, this is what God will do with us. Much like one of those plug in air fresheners that is plugged into the wall and then diffuses a scent out of design, we have been plugged into Christ and diffuse a scent. We have no choice in the matter because this is the divine design for each and every human being fashioned in the image of Christ.

But how many of us have let our oil run out? I have an empty plug in air freshener that has been in the wall of my office for probably eight or ten months just cooking away empty. That is probably the picture of many of our lives and certainly my own many times. This is when you and I feel like a failure and are many times tempted to give up. Now here is why the Psalmist wrote, "the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb." (Psalm 19:9-10, NIV)

The Bible simultaneously states that we are an aroma regardless of choice--it is the doing of God Himself--and also that actually are not sufficient for this task. The Apostle Paul asks, "and who is sufficient for these things?" Right now I'm thinking of the movie/cartoon Madagascar and the less than brilliant lemur, Mort, jumping up and down and saying, "Me, me, I'm steak, I'm steak!" (If you have no idea what I'm talking about go and rent Madagascar. You'll thank me for it.)

Even the great Apostle was forced to admit--many more times than just here--that no person is sufficient in and of themselves but that our sufficiency comes directly from God Himself. That should make every one of us jump up and down and shout "Amen!" This Truth is sweeter than the sweetest thing imaginable and more precious than the finest gold.

Yes, you and I can't. We really can't. And this is OK. It is the way things are. And there is nothing you or I can do about it because in and of ourselves we are totally insufficient. Jesus Himself said, "Apart from Me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) But in the same breath the Bible says, "our sufficiency is from God who has made us competent . . ." And we are not competent to be great business people, great fathers and mothers, great sons and daughters, great musicians and lay people, great car mechanics or anything else. We have been made competent ministers of a new covenant. Maybe this is why we feel like failures much of the time --- because we are trying to be competent at things God has not made us competent to be. Am I looking to be minister of the new covenant first, or a competent car mechanic first? This thought can be taken into any realm of life.

I am getting long-winded here so I will close with this thought from D.A. Carson's book Scandalous: The Cross and the Resurrection of Jesus (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010). He writes,

"Christians today will understand that biblically authentic Christianity is never merely a matter of rules and regulations, of public liturgy and private morality. Biblical Christianity results in transformed men and women--men and women who, because of the power of the Spirit of God, enjoy regenerated natures. We want to please God, we want to be holy, we want to confess Jesus is Lord. In short, because of the grace secured by Christ's cross, we ourselves experience something of a transforming moral imperative: the sins we once loved we learn to fear and hate, the obedience and holiness we once despised we no hunger for. God help us, we are woefully inconsistent in all this, but we have already tasted enough of the powers of the age to come that we know what a transforming moral imperative feels like in our lives, and we long for its perfection at the final triumph of Christ."

Yes, you can't. And that is OK. But in Him, you can, and are! Praise be to God in and through Christ Jesus!