◄ Our Weakness - His Strength ►

He said to me, My spiritual strength is sufficient, for it is only by means of conscious weakness that power is developed" (2 Cor. 12:9, Wms.).

Early in our Christian life the general conception is that God is a wonderful Helper. Later, as we experience failure, we come to know full well that if anything is going to be accomplished in and through us, He must do it all.

"Everything you need in the Christian life, no matter what it may be, comes from the Father alone. You will see more and more the utter futility of trying to make yourself a keen Christian; that your best efforts are as futile as your worst failures; that your Christian life is to be a continual miracle that the Father must work every minute; that the only thing you have to do is to depend utterly, and altogether, and all the time on Him. You will see that what you need is not more effort or determination, but more of the Father; a deeper, more continual trust and dependence upon Him." -D.T.

"For the discovery of our sinful condition and getting deliverance from the reign of sin, there is an experiential process in us. The doctrine is that we died unto sin with Christ: that is Romans Six. But the resting on the truth found there as a doctrine, is connected with the experience found in Romans Seven; the result being in Romans Eight.

"Now this experience is the painful learning that we have no strength to make good what we would and what is right. There is a point in the experience which often helped, but it is not deliverance; that is, hating the evil which yet works in me. But after this I find what I hate too strong for me, and I am brought to the consciousness of my being without strength - the point to which the Father was leading me all along." -J.N.D.

"For when I am weak (in myself), then I am strong (in Him)" (2 Cor. 12:10, Wey.).