We are hosting a small leadership gathering today at Ebenezers and my topic is competence. Just thought I'd blog a few thoughts.
One of my fall-back verses has always been II Corinthians 3:4-6:
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
I've always loved the phrase: our competence comes from God.
In my experience, God often uses us at our point of incompetence. I had no pastoral experience, except for a summer internship, before becoming lead pastor of NCC. No one on our staff had even worked at a coffeehouse when we started building Ebenezers. We were totally unqualified. But calling is more important than qualification.
Noah wasn't qualified to build the ark. Nehemiah wasn't qualified to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. David wasn't qualified to fight Goliath. Moses wasn't qualified to lead the Israelites. And Peter certainly wasn't qualified to walk on water.
It is our incompetence that keeps us humble and keeps us dependent upon God. But that awareness of our own incompetence needs to be coupled with the awareness that our competence comes from God. So the locus of our confidence isn't in our ability. The locus of confidence is God's ability. It's not self-confidence. It's God-confidence! It is the faithfulness of God that fuels our faith!
One of my fall-back verses has always been II Corinthians 3:4-6:
Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant--not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
I've always loved the phrase: our competence comes from God.
In my experience, God often uses us at our point of incompetence. I had no pastoral experience, except for a summer internship, before becoming lead pastor of NCC. No one on our staff had even worked at a coffeehouse when we started building Ebenezers. We were totally unqualified. But calling is more important than qualification.
Noah wasn't qualified to build the ark. Nehemiah wasn't qualified to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem. David wasn't qualified to fight Goliath. Moses wasn't qualified to lead the Israelites. And Peter certainly wasn't qualified to walk on water.
It is our incompetence that keeps us humble and keeps us dependent upon God. But that awareness of our own incompetence needs to be coupled with the awareness that our competence comes from God. So the locus of our confidence isn't in our ability. The locus of confidence is God's ability. It's not self-confidence. It's God-confidence! It is the faithfulness of God that fuels our faith!
8 Comments:
Thanks for the encouraging word, Mark! I'm embarking on a journey to start a church even though I have no official ministry experience, I'm 24 years old, and I have very little administrative experience.
So I'm pretty scared, but also really excited, because I know there's no way I can do this myself.
Hey Mark,
Thanks for the word about stepping out. I think it is easy to let fear consume the incompetent part of me and prevent me from answering the call. By the way, can we repost this?
Dearabby,
Feel free to repost anything you find repost worthy :)
Mark
Good stuff, Mark. Thanks for sharing this.
That's a great reminder. It's too easy to forget that everything good within us comes from God alone. We tend to take credit for way too much.
Great post.
Brad Ruggles
www.bradruggles.com
Thanks Mark, I needed to read that tonight!
DING! DING! DING!
You hit me head on with that one, Mark! A great encouraging word that keeps us on track and keeps us dependent on God's anointing. THAT's what is imperative.
Thanks for your efforts to include all of us that can't make your retreats!
Great and interesting post on confidence building. Agree with you fully. However we have our own view on confidence building too. You can find out more at http://www.confidencebuildingcourses.com
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