How Adequate Are You? Series

How confident are you to face each day? How adequate do you feel to take on life? How do you deal with the challenges that life brings you each day and you own feelings of inadequacy?

A golfer who had been playing badly went to a psychiatrist who told him to relax by playing a round of golf without a ball. "Do everything you would normally do, but use an imaginary ball,".

The golfer tried it the next day. He stepped up on the first tee, imagined he got a 260-yard drive, made a fine approach shot to the green, then putted for a par. The round went splendidly and as he approached the 18th hole, he met another golfer playing the same way--no ball.

The other golfer had seen the same psychiatrist.

They decided to play the last hole together and bet $10 on the outcome.

The first golfer swung at his imaginary ball and announced that it had gone 280 yards right down the middle of the fairway. The second golfer matched his drive.

The first fellow then took out his 5-iron and after swinging at his imaginary ball, he exclaimed,

"Look at that shot! It went right over the pin and the reverse spin on it brought it right back into the hole! I win." "No you don’t," said the second golfer. "You hit my ball."

We can go thru so many deceptive gymnastics to try convince ourselves of our own adequacy when it come to facing life each day.

Lady went to a minister and said, “I must confess a great sin in my life.” “What is it?” “It’s the sin of pride. I often stand before my mirror and admire my beauty for hours on end.” The preacher replied, “Lady, your sin is not the sin of pride. IT’S THE SIN OF THE IMAGINATION.”

Prominent photographer of Milwaukee says that there are actually very few beautiful women or handsome men in the world. “It is interesting to see the number of persons who do not know that they have a crooked nose, one eye smaller, a lopsided face or some other fault. (Picasso)

When people look into the mirror they usually are combing their hair, shaving or otherwise in motion. MOTION IS THE GREAT DECEIVER, and when in motion, the faults are minimized. It is when the face is stationary, as in a picture, that the faults become apparent.” (Might explain while so many are afraid to slow down and take a good look at themselves)

We all need more confidence in life, but one way not to get it is by looking at your own picture such as on your DRIVER’S LICENSE PICTURE?

Most of us look pretty much like criminals or something else. MY THEORY is that people who drink should pose for their driver’s license so they look drunk. That way the police officer would look at it and then them and ask no questions.

Actor Tom Selleck said, “Whenever I get full of myself, I remember the nice, elderly couple who approached me with a camera on a street in Honolulu one day. When I struck a pose for them, the man said, ‘NO, NO, WE WANT YOU TO TAKE A PICTURE OF US.’”

Paul asks a question at the end of chapter 2: And who is adequate for these things? ‘Sufficient…power….ability…fitness’ Literally ‘many’ Who has enough for what God calls their life to?

Beginning in 3:4 Paul explains what truly makes us adequate:

Paul mentions all three Persons of the Trinity to show us how a God-centered, God-directed, God-saturated life functions. What is to be the source of our confidence?

4 Such confidence we have through Christ toward God.

5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

OUR CONFIDENCE IN IS CHRIST AND NOT OURSELVES

Sign in front of an Atlanta, Georgia, restaurant featuring fried chicken read, “IF THE COLONEL HAD OUR CHICKEN RECIPE HE’D BE A GENERAL.”

No lack of confidence in that place.

The idea has it’s origins in the OT

When Abram was 99yrs old – God said: “I am God Almighty!” El Shaddai in the Hebrew } God Almighty

God promised the He would multiply his descendants

That he would become a father of many nations / that kings would descend from him

And that Jehovah would be God to him and his descendants

Abraham fell on his face and laughed saying: “Shall a child be born to a woman who is 90yrs old – and I am almost 100?

God responded saying “Sarah shall indeed bare a son – and you shall call his name Isaac Isaac means LAUGHTER! MORE FAITH: Name kid Caleb