November 19

“For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.” 1 Corinthians 2:2,3

The first of these statements applies to Paul's message, the second to his person. God requires that those who proclaim the message of the cross should have suffered the cross—should know themselves to be, in Paul's own words, crucified with Christ. We often think that when a person like Paul got up to speak, he must have felt confident in the strength of his own resources. But Paul's theme was Jesus Christ “crucified through weakness,” and it was necessary, therefore, that he should tell it in conscious weakness himself.

We must allow God to cancel our self-sufficiency. When we confess before him that we can do nothing in our own strength, then Christ will be able to manifest his power upon us. That which passes through the death of the cross and rises up again in life is of God, and being so will count mightily for him.