Paul made much of his weakness and of the fact that the Holy Spirit manifests itself greatly in our weaknesses making us strong. This is very much true. When God calls you into that uncomfortable place of service that you never expected to be in, He will empower you to be more excellent than you could ever imagine.
“And he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9
When we use this and other verses like it to focus on our weakness, we miss the entire point. It is not about my weakness. It is about the power of Christ that dwells in me. The Holy Spirit is not out there creating empowerment in the consequences of our incompetent behavior. He is dwelling in us crying out for us to push ourselves to a level of excellence that can only come from God, Redemptive Excellence.
Redemptive Excellence should be the hallmark of godly, Holy Spirit led men and women. They should stand out in every way.
“Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” Acts 4:13
It was a matter of Redemptive Excellence that caused the Jewish leaders to recognize that these men had been with Jesus. No they were not formally educated but they had applied themselves to excellence during their time with Jesus and the Holy Spirit came up underneath that effort and made them men that would turn the world upside down. (Acts 17:6 KJV) The Holy Spirit did not come behind them cleaning up their messes or excusing their lack of effort. He empowered them to be amazing.
Redemptive Excellence is an expression of God’s call on someone’s life. The Old Testament is full of men and women called by the Holy Spirit to Redemptive Excellence. In each case whether it was Gideon, Deborah, Samuel, David, Elisha, Isaiah and the list goes one, they followed the call of God and the Holy Spirit empowered them to Redemptive Excellence that brought to them a standard of performance that they would not have otherwise attained. It was this empowerment coupled with effort and focus that brought world changing results.
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