Self-Sufficiency

Hudson Taylor, the well-known missionary to China during the nineteenth century, was once asked by his wife, "Are you proud of anything?" He answered, "Proud about what?" She said, "The many things you have done and accomplished." Hudson Taylor responded, "I never knew I had done anything." He clearly understood that any success that one might have in the ministry or in the Christian walk is by the power, work, and grace of Jesus Christ. Only Christ is all-powerful and all-sufficient. Taylor lived the words of Charles Spurgeon: "If Christ be anything, he must be everything."
I fear that many of us in the church have a belief in our own self-sufficiency. We often have a lingering pride in who we are and what we can accomplish. But the reality is that the blessings of God do not come to us through human strength or skill or craftiness. They only come through the gracious provision of God to an undeserving people. The truth is that we do not need self-sufficiency; what we need is self-denial. We need to learn to be humble and meek, and to rely on the power of God to work in us and through us.