I was listening to part of a message about John Bunyan by John Piper this morning which referenced II Corinthians 1:9 – “Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.  But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

How easy it is for us to get this wrong.  We try to rely on ourselves or on our bank accounts or in our own cleverness or…you fill in the blank.  This is a huge issue in ministry as well.  Am I relying on God or trying to do it myself?  Of course, we have to minister, to do the work.  But God is the one who blesses our ministry, who makes it effective…or not.  We always need his grace, his help, his Spirit to be at work, or we labor in vain.

We know this, yet that self-sufficiency can creep in.  We can get so excited and impressed with our newest sermon, program, idea, whatever.  We think, “Certainly this will make a difference!”  But if God doesn’t bless it, it amounts to nothing.

Perhaps God doesn’t bless our churches more because we simply couldn’t handle it.  We would start to think too much of ourselves, begin to rely too much on ourselves.  We would forget that we need God, and that it is all of God, not of ourselves.

I think this is where prayer comes in, though that too can become a mere formality tacked on to our own self-reliance.  But if we truly believe we need God’s help, we will pray.  We will plead with God to work through us.  We will pray with fervor – “Your kingdom come.”  We will join the Psalmist in praying, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yea, establish the work of our hands!” (Psalm 90:17)

May this be our prayer as we rely on him.