4.2 Your Human Weakness
© 2018 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
You began this journey of knowing Jesus as He is by knowing Jesus as the One who lives in Person inside your heart. We never leave that initial knowing of Jesus; all things “deeper” are found only here.
But let’s look at Paul’s words in a slightly larger context, Ephesians 3:17-19. That Christ might dwell inside your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded inside of love, might be fully able to seize hold of, to comprehend together with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth {of the full extent of God}, and to know even more the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ, that you might be filled unto and with all the fullness of God.
The Biggest Statement. Being filled with all the fullness of God is simply the largest statement in the Bible and in the universe, and utterly incomprehensible and overwhelming. Yet we cannot know anything about God or man, about Christ or salvation unless we deal with these words head on.
You were custom designed, dear reader, to contain ALL of God in Person inside your human frame. Look down at your lowly human form; what do you see by appearance? – Weakness. What do you see by substance according to the Word God speaks? – The container of all the fullness of God in Person. Your human weakness is your glory.
God Designed You. But we have this treasure {all the fullness of God} in earthen vessels {our human weakness}, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7). This is your reality forever. Another Person, God All-Carrying, lives inside of you in all that He is.
I want to talk about the beauty, glory, and importance of your very human weakness. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves (Psalm 100:3). You did not design or make yourself; God did. And He made you exactly as you are for the best of intentions. God designed you as you are to be filled with Himself.
Made Perfect. Let’s begin with Jesus’ personal definition of His ongoing relationship with you. Jesus said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect inside of weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). That word, “perfect,” means “bring to full completion,” with the concept of a step-by-step transformation.
Let’s paraphrase what Jesus said to Paul and to us. (Put your own name in the blank and hear Jesus speaking to you.) “________, My grace, My presence in Person in all that I am alive inside Your heart, is all that you need. I am enough for you, for My strength, My ability to fulfill every Word God speaks is made perfect, comes to its full completion, only inside your human weakness.”
When I Am Weak. Paul goes on to say, in response to Jesus alive inside of him, Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). Yet it is much more than Christ in us; the Father is inside of Christ, who is the Connector between us and God.
It is clear, then, that God created us weak AND with the perfect capacity to fit with, to contain, and to know Himself as strength inside of us. Those who would be strong and wise towards God in themselves cannot know Jesus as He is.
Despising Human Weakness. You are well aware, however, of the great hatred against human weakness that permeates most humans and human society. The evil one despises human weakness as the image of God and prefers to parade an image of arrogant superiority as “what God looks like.” Stay free from that false image, the despising of human weakness, by knowing God only inside of Jesus living inside of your heart through faith.
I have stated that God has given us specific pictures of Himself through Jesus, the One who shows us the Father. I want to show you the most important of those pictures.
Jesus Stumbled. After the trial of Jesus, John saw and reported that Jesus left that trial carrying His cross (John 19:17). But the other three gospel writers stated that another, Simon of Cyrene, carried the cross for Jesus (Matthew 27:32). In between these two accounts, it is clear that Jesus stumbled under a cross He could not carry, weakened as He was by the whips and thorns.
The gospel writers do not give us an account of Jesus’ stumbling, but the implication placed there by God is clear. You see, this same Jesus had told His own disciples – If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me (Matthew 16:24).
The Image of God. So, you must ask yourself – What is a Christ who stumbles under a cross He cannot carry? There is only one answer – the very likeness and image of God.
Place these three things together. A Man on His face in the dirt under a cross He cannot carry. – He that has seen Me has seen the Father. – Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever.
God is giving us a picture of Himself as the One who carries all. God used Simon of Cyrene to show us Himself carrying Jesus, who Himself was carrying us, all the way through a path we could not go ourselves, all the way through death and into life. – This is our Father.
Rooted and Grounded in Love. Then consider the entirety of Ephesians 3:17-18 as a whole. Paul begins with Jesus alive in our hearts and ends with our being filled with all the fullness of God. Yet between these two, each more glorious then we can grasp, He places three things. First is that you ARE rooted and grounded inside of love. God is love.
In fact, here is a description Paul gives us of the Father as Love. It is entirely appropriate to place “Father,” all the way through. Love {Father} is patient and kind; Father is not envious; Father is not boastful, is not puffed up, Father does not act improperly, does not seek His own, is not easily provoked, Father keeps no account of wrongs [thinks no evil], Father does not rejoice at injustice, but rejoices together with the truth. Father covers for all, believes for all, hopes for all, carries for all. Father never fails (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).
Embedded in Love. Paul is saying that, because Jesus lives in your heart, and because God created you weak so that He could reveal Himself through you, for that reason (and many more reasons besides), God has utterly embedded you in all your humanity, inside of His tangible, unfailing LOVE, a love that carries all.
Rooted and grounded in love.
Then Paul assumes that God in us is not enough for us, not really, but rather, our knowing of God in us. And so he positions the biggest statement ever uttered in the universe – filled with all the fullness of God – as a knowing which we seize hold of as Christians together. – The breadth and length and height and depth {of the full extent of God}.
Knowing the Love of Christ. The most important part of this knowing for us, however, the place where it begins in our hearts as well as every point at which our knowing touches this God who is too BIG and too BOLD and too KIND for us is this – to know even more the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ.
When Jesus said that age-unfolding life IS knowing God, He meant knowing Love. And this knowing of love happens for us inside of every step that we take.
Here is our reality. God created us weak, and He did so as the perfect counterpoint for His glory inside of us. Then, God took us in our weakness and embedded us, every step that we take, utterly inside of His LOVE.
Know Being Encased in Love. Here is one of the great keys to knowing Jesus as He is. You must KNOW, first, all through your being, that you CANNOT, and that God created you that way. (And we are not speaking of the Godly human desire to excel at doing well in practical or creative things, but rather, of any attempt to “act like” or to be “in agreement with” a “God” whom we do not know.)
And then you must KNOW, all through your being, that God has so embedded you in your weakness inside of His love that it is impossible for you to take any step apart from that love directing your way. Rooted and grounded in Love, that is, in God. – Know even more the surpassing knowledge of the love of Christ.