PERSONAL INABILITY
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Humanistic Presuppositions
Christians of the Western world in particular, because of their humanistic presuppositions of human ability to accomplish anything they set their minds to, often have a difficult time accepting personal inability. Thoroughly convinced that they are “independent selves” capable of self-governance, they are disinclined to admit that they are created as derivative and dependent creatures designed to be receptive in faith to God’s action. But God has His ways of bringing us to the end of our self-confidence in our self-abilities to generate self-righteousness.
The habituated patterns of the “flesh” force many people to an admission of failure and helplessness, as their compulsive, obsessive and addictive propensities, their “besetting sins,” repetitively conquer their flaunted will-power to overcome them.
The abundance of 12-step anonymity groups devoted to varying areas of life-dominating problems is evidence that many have been compelled to admit their inability to avoid succumbing to their selfish and sinful patterns of action and reaction. The self-help programs for reputed recovery from these patterns, even those with group accountability, seldom suffice to provide long-term resolution to the problems, often becoming an habituated crutch to assist in temporary suppression of the desires.
Combined with the frustration of repeated sinful expression of the desires of their “flesh,” Christians who attempt to address their sinful weaknesses by the religious efforts of activism, moralism, legalism and confessionalism will also be forced into the defeatism of admitting that all the inculcations and incentives to overcome their selfish desires by religious techniques are doomed to failure.
The alleged Christian ability to live the Christian life by renunciation and resolution, by dedication and discipline, or by commitment and consecration is a bogus fabrication of an evangelical humanism that believes in the inherent power of an “independent self,” capable of self-righteousness. The humanistic thesis of self-potential thrives on the modern religious calls for increased commitment and dedication, as well as the self-serving programs encouraging involvement and personal disciplines.
Even our fleshly failures and our religious defeats serve God’s purpose to expose our insufficiency to be and do what God wants to be and do in our lives.
As comedian Burt Rosenberg says, “You have to know what ain’t, in order to know what IS. You have to know what doesn’t work, in order to know Who does.”
Paul explained, “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is of God” (II Cor. 3:5). Jesus told His disciples, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5).
A.B. Simpson wrote, The glory of the gospel is that it does not teach us to rise up to higher places, but shows our inability to do anything good of ourselves, and lays us at once in the grave in utter helplessness and nothingness, and then raises us up into new life, born entirely from above. The Christian life is not self-improving, but is wholly supernatural and Divine.13
The “Romans Seven Syndrome” mentioned earlier is the means that God often uses to cause the Christian to admit inability and defeat. When “law” becomes “Christian law,” Christianized in commandments of expected performance and accepted as the legitimate basis of obedience, it serves its final purpose to expose our inability when we cry out, “The good that I would, I do not; and the evil that I would not, that I do” (Rom.
7:19).
Eventually, if we are sufficiently humiliated and honest, the worn-out Christian has to admit, “Lord, I can’t! Leave it up to me and I’ll blow it every time!” Such a cry of distress, the willingness to “give up” all self-attempts to live the Christian life, must be music to God’s ears. We are then at the point of readiness to accept His ability, allowing the Christ-life to be lived out in, as, and through us.
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No Condemnation...
Dr. James Fowler | IOM Staff Writer
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