God actually delights in exalting our inability. He intentionally puts his people in situations where they come face to face with their need for him.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes how God allows us to experience our weaknesses to foster a deeper reliance on Him.
David Platt's quote reflects the idea that our limitations are not merely obstacles but opportunities for spiritual growth and connection with the divine. By placing us in situations where we recognize our own inability, God invites us to seek His strength and guidance, ultimately leading to a more profound relationship with Him. This recognition of need is essential to faith, as it teaches humility and dependence.
In practice
In a sermon about reliance on God, one might say, 'As David Platt reminds us, God delights in our inability, helping us understand our need for Him.'
So what is the difference between someone who willfully indulges in sexual pleasures while ignoring the Bible on moral purity and someone who willfully indulges in the selfish pursuit of more and more material possessions while ignoring the Bible on caring for the poor? The difference is that one involves a social taboo in the church and the other involves the social norm in the church.
The price is certainly high for people who don’t know Christ and who live in a world where Christians shrink back from self-denying faith and settle into self-indulging faith. While Christians choose to spend their lives fulfilling the American dream instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God, literally billions in need of the Gospel remain in the dark
What if the very reason we have breath is because we have been saved for a global mission? And what if anything less than passionate involvement in global mission is actually selling God short by frustrating the very purpose for which he created us?
A high view of God’s sovereignty fuels death-defying devotion to global missions. Maybe another way to put it, people, and more specifically pastors, who believe that God’s sovereign over all things will lead Christians to die for the sake of all peoples.
[...]there is no injustice in God. The injustice lies in Christians who possess the gospel and refuse to give their lives to making it known among those who haven't heard.
God involves us in his missions not because He needs us, but because He loves us. And in His mercy He has invited us to be involved in His sovereign design for the spread of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
The duties God requires of us are not in proportion to the strength we possess in ourselves. Rather, they are proportional to the resources available to us in Christ. We do not have the ability in ourselves to accomplish the least of God's tasks. This is the law of grace. When we recognize it is impossible for us to perform a duty in our own strength, we will discover the secret of its accomplishment.
I believe God has heard my prayers. He will make it manifest in His own good time that He has heard me. I have recorded my petitions that when God has answered them, His name will be glorified.
You must keep all earthy treasures out of your heart, and let Christ be your treasure, and let Him have your heart.
The issue for us is trusting God enough to trust also His timing. If we can truly believe He has our welfare at heart, may we not let His plans unfold as He thinks best?
If prayer puts God to work on earth, then, by the same token, prayerlessness rules God out of the world's affairs and prevents Him from working.
If my life is surrendered to God, all is well. Let me not grab it back, as though it were in peril in His hand but would be safer in mine!
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