Last week Zac Poonen posted a teaching called “God Wants us to Recognize Our Nothingness,” which prompted me to expand on his idea in today’s post: God wants us to recognize our nothingness so that He can fill us with His abundance and so that Satan cannot touch us.
Paul said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth” (1 Cor. 3:7-8). In other words, the one who does evangelism is nothing and the one who does Bible teaching is also nothing. God alone is everything and without Him is nothing. The secret to Paul’s success—he embraced his nothingness and reveled in God’s abundance.
Even more, when you have been reduced to nothing (of your ‘self’), you are really free. No more defensiveness—because you have nothing to defend. No longer critical—because nothing bothers you. Offensive and irritating people will still try to evoke some negative reaction from you. Satan’s minions will harass you. But if you have embraced your nothingness, even the demons will find no place to engage. Jesus said “the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me” (Jn. 14:30). Wouldn’t that be great if Satan couldn’t get a hold on you? His attempts to pin you down would be like trying to nail jello to the wall.
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