Failure vs. Competency

Romans 9:6—“But it is not as though the word of God has failed.”

1 Corinthians 14:12—“So with yourselves; since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.”

2 Corinthians 3:4-6—“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence 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.”

“Failure!” How I hate that word. I guess deep in my own heart and mind I fear it more than anything else. I don’t want to fail; I don’t want to be a failure.

The word itself is threatening. It is harsh. “He is a failure” we say about someone who has not lived up to the potential that we saw in them. He failed—at business, at love, at sport, at play. None of these things are considered praiseworthy.

No one wants to be a failure.

God doesn’t fail. His word succeeds; it does what he sent it to do. The word of God has not failed.

It doesn’t matter what the world may look like, it doesn’t matter even the circumstances around us. God’s Word has not failed. Things will work out just as God predicted. He is not unaware.

He has made us competent.

Not failures, but competent.

Because his promise is true and will succeed at what it is sent to do, we can be confident in this thing—God has not called us to fail as his ministers, as his servants, as his children. We are competent to the task he has called us, not by virtue of our own abilities, but by virtue of the Spirit of God which he has given to us in a lavish manner.

Nothing comes from us. We cannot claim that anything we have or even own came from us. Everything comes from the hand of God, the same hand that makes us competent in his service and by his grace.

Competent! I am not a failure in God’s sight. I am competent by Christ. Competent by the Spirit of God. I can do what he asked me to do. I am competent as a minister of the new covenant.

Sometimes it is difficult to see the competency that God s working in us. Sometimes we only see failure and disrepute. But God is faithful; he will do what he said he would do. Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians 3 that God is able to make us competent to perform the tasks to which he called us.

Competent! Capable! Able!

In Christ, I am competent.

It is a good thing to know. It feels good to hear it. By God’s grace we are competent to fulfill the tasks to which he called us.

We can go and teach. We can win souls, we can baptize, and we can do whatever we are asked to do. We are competent.

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!

Thanks for reading!