God Is All In

Reid Fowler
3 min readFeb 4, 2017

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“Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit.

Paul, writing in, 2 Corinthians 3:4–6a esvbible.org

God is all in.

One of the words I always look for in a statement of faith, in the article on Scripture, whether it’s the belief system of a local congregation, or any Christian organization, is the word, “sufficient”.

You can say that Scripture is inspired by God, but not necessarily believe it is sufficient.

You can say that Scripture is the Word of God, but not believe that it is sufficient.

The evidence for this in some churches is that the beliefs, the rules, and the philosophies of additional authorities are sometimes added to Scripture, or worse, they replace Scripture.

Things such as the principles of psychology, various therapies, and marketing campaigns, or borrowings from other religions and movements, seem to carry equal, or greater, weight in preaching, teaching, ministry, ecclesiology and decision making.

This simply means, that regardless of certain words, the Bible is not considered to be trustworthy enough to be sufficient for all that we need to know for what we believe and what we do.

Paul knew better. He knew that any message, any gifts, any power and any wisdom necessary for witness, ministry and building up the body of Christ, all had to come from God.

He said that we can’t claim any talent, or smarts, or abilities or influence for ourselves, because all come from, and through, the grace of the Lord.

When Paul was in the middle of, what he thought, was negotiation with God over some inhibiting problem he had, he tried several times in prayer to have the thorn removed. But he learned that the Lord had a different plan.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:8–9)

When it was time to build the tabernacle, God moved the hearts of the people of Israel to donate funds and materials so much, that Moses had to shut down the contributions.

“So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, ‘Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.’ So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more.” (Exodus 36:6–7)

Note that all that had been given was sufficient for the need, and in fact exceeded what was needed. God is sufficient.

In this same letter, earlier, Paul raised the question about how we, the followers of Jesus, are able to do the work of the gospel.

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”

(2 Corinthians 2:15–17)

Perhaps, at times, in our local churches today, we undertake programs, and ministries, and budgets, and missions, in the mistaken assumption that we are, in ourselves, sufficient for such things.

Paul and the other apostles made no such error.

We need to always, without fail, rely on God, for He, and He alone, is sufficient for such things.

We can trust His sufficiency spiritually, physically and materially for all of the witness, ministry and obedience to which we are called.

His love is sufficient.

His grace is sufficient.

His power is sufficient.

His wisdom is sufficient.

His provision is sufficient.

His protection is sufficient.

God holds nothing back from what we need, and He knows our need perfectly, better than even we know our need.

God is all in.

Soli Deo gloria!

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