Competence !! What and Why

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. - II Corinthians 3:5-6

The desire to be competent and a winner is present in every living being. The world defines a winner to be one who achieves different feats through their own skill and strengths. Man being fallen and tuned to the ways of world therefore finds himself participate in this air of competition.

There are different kinds of battles that every human goes through in different areas. There are few areas that they find themselves highly competitive and in few other areas that they find themselves lacking. Hence, they find themselves perform extra-ordinarily well in few and suffer with low self-esteem in the other.

As a child of God who has been reconciled with HIM through His redemptive blood that is constantly transforming us into HIS likeness, is being competent wrong or is lacking competence wrong? Neither. The word of God says, “The Lord will make you the head and not the tail”- (Deuteronomy 28:13). This very clearly says that the Lord wants you to be on the top and a winner in all walks of your life.

We can ask questions like, how can this be true when I don’t have the skill? I can’t do it; I haven’t been trained for it?

Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.' So the Lord said to him, "Who has made man's mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say."

When we understand what Moses understood, that is in our weakness His strength is made perfect and that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us, we will recognize that we are winners not because of our own strength or skill but because of the one whom we serve - the Lord. It is in His strength that we gain victory.

There are many people who are on the other side of the spectrum too. They refuse to be used by God because they think of themselves as “not ready.” We will never be competent enough. If we were, the sufficiency would be in ourselves, not from God.

Take the case of a race, you have a set of rules to abide by, spectators who witness your run and a committee who stamps you as a winner. So is the case with life, to be accepted and acknowledged as a winner, you need someone in authority to establish you there. Lets look back at Deuteronomy 28:13. It says, “The Lord” will make you the head. That means, that you are accepted and acknowledged as the winner, because the Lord makes you one.

Now why does the Lord want His children to be competent? Is it because He wants to show to the children of the world His power and might? Is it because He wants to distinguish His children from the world? Or Is it because we may participate in the divine plan of redemption of souls into His kingdom?

The answer to why the Lord equips us with His competence to make us the head can be found in 2 Corinthians 3:6. He madeus competent to give us life and did it not through the ‘letter’ but the ‘Spirit’. The letter is the law in its outward sense, written on tablets of stone. The letter of the law was introduced in the Old Covenant. It told us what to do and what not to do. The letter can therefore kill because the law exposes our sin and thereby qualifies us to be “killed” in the Lords presence. It thoroughly and completely establishes our guilt. But the Lord did not impart competence to us to wade through this law and be established as righteous. We would never be able to do so. He gave us His robe of righteousness so that the law cannot bind us down so that we could serve Him in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

It doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit replaces the written law, but that He completes and fulfills the work of the written law in our hearts. The Spirit gives us life, and with this spiritual life we can live the law and purpose of God. When we taste this in our lives, the Spirit enables us to become a part of His divine plan - “Not one should perish but that all should come to repentance” and enables us to look beyond ourselves and reach out to the others and reveal the Lord to them.

Lord, Please forgive us for those times when we think that it is through our strength that we accomplish the different things and for times when we refuse to step up because we think we are incompetent. Help us Lord to recognize that our sufficiency is in you. Help us to look beyond yourselves and allow you to work in and through our lives for the purposes in your heart. In Jesus name I pray. Amen