2 Corinthians 3 - Sufficiency in God

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2 Corinthians 3

​​“Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but OUR SUFFICIENCY IS FROM GOD…” (2 Cor 3:5).
 
Charles Spurgeon says, “Our sufficiency is of God; let us practically enjoy this truth. We are poor, leaking vessels, and the only way for us to keep full is to put our pitcher under the perpetual flow of boundless grace. Then, despite its leakage, the cup will always be full to the brim.”
 
I often feel very much like a poor, leaking vessel. I fill a little here but then some spills over there, not to mention the steady leaks. When filling with my own sufficiency + worldly things and desires, my cup is never full despite the long, hard work. But when we fill with things of God and even allow God to do the filling, the jar looks different; full. It has a new purpose. We can do things we never thought possible; things we are utterly insufficient to do on our own. And though it is fuller, it is also surprisingly lighter. Because our own sufficiency is so very heavy.
 
Paul talks in this chapter about the old and new covenant. He says that if glory – though veiled and fading – came from the old covenant, how much more glory – permanent glory even – comes from the new covenant. The old covenant was a vessel filled with our own sufficiency and condemnation over a law we couldn’t keep. The old covenant kept us restricted and separated from God. Glory was concealed. Leak. Leak. Leak.
 
But the new covenant is a vessel filled with mercy, grace, forgiveness, righteousness. There is no condemnation. The cracks and holes and crevasses are sealed by the blood of Jesus; by the sufficiency of a righteous savior.
 
When we peer into the vessel filled with God by God, we don’t see our own reflection anymore, but instead, we see Jesus. It is an image not of what we are or what we have done or what we can do or what was done to us, but of who Jesus is; what we will become. Because as we behold His glory -- as we fill up on Him -- we are being transformed into His image; the image in which we were created. And it is good. It is very good.

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