The Supplied Life Devotional for May 21
God's opportunity
"But Jesus looked at them and said to them, With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26
The highest revelation of the church is to see that the church is Christ (1 Cor. 12:12). This is how the Father sees the church. This is how the apostles saw the church, and this is how we should see the church. The vision of the church as Christ is truly a heavenly vision. This vision reduces us to Christ and becomes the governing factor controlling our daily life. By this vision, we will be escorted to Christ over and over again.
We need to see in the Bible the divine principle of measurement that governs God's relationship with man. God works with fallen man on the basis of this principle. First, He measures man according to His standard. Then this divine measurement becomes a demand upon man. This demand, in turn, reveals man's shortness and failure. Finally, man's realization of his failure is intended by God to escort him to Christ. In other words, the measurement and the subsequent demand of God is for one thing—to lead us to Christ to experience Another life.
God desires to be man's life-supply. The way He fulfills this desire is by first measuring man to expose his shortness. By this measuring He escorts man out of his own resources into God Himself as his boundless supply. Thus, in God's economy the measuring Word of God is always intended to produce a standard beyond man's ability and capacity. Indeed, God's Word with its divine measurement and high demand, which far exceeds man's natural capacity, is the same Word that escorts man to God Himself over and over again. It is this principle that we see governing God's relationship with fallen man, both in the Old Testament under the law and in the New Testament under the higher demand of the law revealed in Matthew 5—7. Indeed, man's extremity becomes God's opportunity.
- Bill Freeman, The Supplied Life