Sometimes, as I go through life, humanity sneaks up on me just long enough to wake me up to the fact that without God I don't have much to offer. My own self-preservation, self-interested, humanistic, selfish approach to life becomes absolutely obvious. In these times it is even more obvious that anything supernatural, good and godly must come from absolute dependency on God. This letter, blog, whatever you want to call it is the opposite of a motivational speech and won't impress your flesh one bit. It won't help you "self-improve," but will help you "self-destruct." Keep reading to find out more...
I don't like the saying, "without God I can do nothing." That saying couldn't be further from the truth. Well meaning preachers and Christians may quote this and I give them the benefit of intention. However, without God I CAN do a lot! The problem in this statement is the "I." The problem is never with God. God knew that when men put their minds to it they can accomplish almost anything, look at the tower of babel:
Genesis 11- 3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Is life all about man's accomplishments? In some cultures, we seem to think so. So why would God break up such valiant attempts at teamwork and success as that of the constructing of the tower of babel? They were mindful of the things of man, not God, that's why! Jesus told Peter he was Satan when he was mindful of the things of man and not God (Matt. 16:23)! How in error I have been for all these years when my mind strays towards the successes and interests on man, of myself, of humanity. Must Jesus have to call me Satan a thousand times before I wake up and realize how incapable I am of serving Him with the mind of Christ?!
We are about as capable of accurately serving God as a child is of swimming across the Atlantic ocean from one continent to the other. Impossible! To think otherwise is a grave error. Self has a hard time embracing such truths! Self fights to stay alive, to stay significant in some way or another to earn the approval of someone far inferior to our Creator King. Sometimes that someone is someone we love, and sometimes it is just a stranger. In many ways we do things in life simply to impress ourselves and to feel like we did some sort of good. How in error we are, friends! Do you not know that even your well-intended good works are evil! The best intended act of service or self-denial is like a dirty tampon, the Word of God says (Isaiah 64:6)! Look up this Scripture. In the Hebrew, the original language of "filthy rags" means a woman's dirty rags during "that time" of the month. This is natural for the woman but stinky, gross, and filthy just like our human nature!
If our good works are evil, if our best intended, most energetic efforts of serving our King are evil and in error what possible chance under heaven and earth do we have to properly serve God? NONE! That's the point! You cannot do it! Religion is predicated on propagating the false assumption that you can! Satan also perpetuates this theme through his encouragement of your flesh efforts in trying to serve God. Satan knows that when you try to serve God in the flesh you become disillusioned, burned out, broken and useless! Oh God, please open our eyes to help us see this truth! YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD! Only God in you can serve God through you! Please hear me before another radical Revivalist becomes a dying star Disciple!
We cannot serve God and we shouldn't try. All we must do is surrender... daily. Our works will get us nowhere, fast! We'll spin our wheels and spin our wheels, until fifty years later we look back on our life and realize all that we did was a waste of time. Have you read Ecclesiastes lately? That is the letter of a broken man lamenting sarcastically about the life of the richest man to ever live... a life of wisdom, money, power, sex. A life that was absolutely worthless apart from God!
What then is the summary of all of this? The same summary that a writer finished Ecclesiastes with. The conclusion of that letter is an eternal conclusion that remains to this day... "Fear the Lord and obey His commands. (Eccl. 12:13)" Obey not in your strength, but in His! His strength is made perfect in your weakness, thus the reason why we need Christ Jesus in the first place! The whole point of the law is to prove that you cannot obey it! It proves our deficiency in hopes of pointing us to the Fulfiller of the law, the ONLY Sufficient One, Christ Jesus! You must let Him, the Great I AM take away your great "I CAN."
Let this plea be a stark reminder of an eternal truth... You must be absolutely dependent on God and STAY dependent at all times. I cannot live sinless without God, far from it! I cannot even think sinless without Him! I cannot do one thing, not the smallest, with a pure heart and in the will of God without His Spirit inside me leading me and empowering me to do so! Even the best prepared sermon preached in the flesh would be nothing more than an emotional speech, pathetic at best. I MUST and we MUST stay wholly surrendered to Him or our lives will be of little use to the advancement of His Kingdom. Let your sin and humanity remind you of this truth every time you realize you fall short. Realize it you must. If not, you won't recognize that your hands need to stop gripping your life so hard, knowing it's slippery and elusive, and let your life fall into the hands of our Almighty God, and Him alone.
Your fear of insignificance must be crucified on Christ's cross for you to live a resurrected, victorious life in Him. Even my cooperation with Him is insufficient. We are to not live a life occasionally calling upon Him as many do. We are not even to live a life walking with Him when we can. We must stay IN Him at ALL times. Flesh isn't allowed in Him. You'll still exist, but once you put on Christ and hide yourself in Him, you will look a lot more like Him to the world when they look at you. Before you can be found in Him, you must let go of the world, and your own efforts so He can take you to the place where He rules and resides... seated at the right hand of God, the place of true eternal significance.
MS
www.youarerevival.com



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