The New Life

XX.
POWER AND WEAKNESS.
" He hath said unto me, My power is made perfect in weakness.
Therefore will I glory in my weaknesses, that the strength
of Christ may rest upon me. Wherefore I take pleasure in
weaknesses : for when I am weak, then am I strong."—2 Cor.
xii. 9, 10.
THERE
is almost no word that is so imperfectlyunderstood
in the Christian life as the word
weakness. Sin and shortcoming, sluggishness and
disobedience, are set to the account of our weakness.
With this appeal to weakness, the true feeling of
guilt and the sincere endeavor after progress are impossible.
How, pray, can I be guilty, when I do not
do what it is not in my power to do ? The Father
cannot demand of His child what He can certainly
do independently. That, indeed, was done by the
law under the Old Covenant ; but that the Father,
under the New Covenant, does not do. He requires
of us nothing more than what He has prepared for
us power to do in His Holy Spirit. The new life is a
life in the power of Christ through the Spirit.
The error of this mode of thinking is that people
estimate their weakness, not too highly, but too
meanly. They would still do something by the exercise
of all their powers, and with the help of God.
95