To: My Followers
From: God
Subject: Life
There will be no doing this yourself.
Living a life with Me as your Lord – it’s not possible in your own strength.
I don’t say this because I have a superiority complex (I’m actually quite justified in feeling superior, but that’s another memo). I say this to enlighten you as to how your own heart works. I created you to need Me to live correctly.
Books, classes, sermons, good intentions, redoubled efforts, positive thinking, having a certain amount of faith, praying often enough… none of these will end your struggle to live right. They may aid you in moving in the right direction, but, ultimately, they will not enable you to conquer the affection for wrongdoing you have in your heart.
I am being quite literal when I say only I can make you live right. Me in you is the only way you will ever succeed at anything I’d ever approve of.
I’m not talking about Me enabling you to live well. I am saying anything good you do is not you at all; it’s Me. I just happen to be choosing to move and work through you. You may have the desire to do what is good, but you cannot carry it out (Romans 7:18, Galatians 5:17).
You need me, not just to be with you, but to take over you. Successful living – as I define it – cannot be accomplished any other way.
In the best sense of the word, I want to control you (Romans 8:6). And as contrary to human reason as it may seem, it is in your best interest to let Me control you (Romans 8:28-30).
All you need to do is be willing to let Me work through you. Once you consent – and you have to choose to consent countless times each day – My Spirit, within you but independent of you, does all the rest.
I know this is a mystery. But you don’t have to fully understand how it all works to obey.
Come to Me. Trust in My unfailing love for you. Let Me show you the only way you can live a life worthy of the calling you have received – by letting Me live through you (Ephesians 4:1).
I really like this. Great writing.
Thanks, Jean!
Great post, Kelly. It’s all about hear AND obey isn’t it? The only thing I would say different is rather than control, I believe that we, being made to do things even greater than Christ did, are in a “partnership” with God. As you imply, it’s all about relationship. He’s not looking for puppets but for warriors of faith. That said, we should be poor in Spirit, yes, but not let ourselves think we’re nothing and walk around like we’re incapable of this or that because of a poverty mindset; “In Christ, all things are possible.” Amen? I think God chose Moses because he wasn’t part of a generation of poverty thinkers. He was raised by a king of Egypt so he didn’t think like the rest of Israel and was made to become their deliverer from bondage because, in reality, he didn’t have their poverty mindset. He knew more was possible than that sorry existence. Anyway, great post. I’ll be following your other posts. You’re in my Twitter feed. Blessing, Mark (Twitter: SpirituallyLed, spirituallyled.com)
I agree, Mark, it is a partnership of some sort. But it’s hard to nail down what OUR role is and what GOD’S role is. Admittedly, this post is only addressing one idea of many as to how that partnership works out. Ultimately, I’m not sure any of us can know for certain how it works.
I like your point that we should not let ourselves think we are nothing. We shouldn’t take verses like “You can do nothing apart from Me,” to mean we are of no value to God. Quite the opposite – we are invaluable to Him, just not for the reasons we typically think. We are invaluable because He made us, and we are His, not because of what we do or don’t accomplish.
We are only incapable of that which we don’t rely on Christ’s power to accomplish.
Thanks for commenting and following. I’ll check out your site.
Cool!
I like this. Interestingly enough, my uncle and I recently had a discussion about something that his Aunt (who is a “pastor” I used quotes because, well…that’s another discussion) said. It had to do with people doing good things. She made a comment to the effect of “they must be saved because they are doing something good.” But lots of people do good things, but aren’t saved. For instance an atheist may help an old lady across the street or may even give to the homeless, but that does not make them saved. It’s a hard thing to reconcile with her mindset, but also with this post. I guess the question to bring forth is, does God move through people who are NOT saved and do good works through them? So in that frame of mind, even the atheist doing something good in walking the old lady across the street is being moved by God to do so, but yet, does not believe in God. I don’t know if this makes sense or not, but just a thought I had.
God may use unbelievers to accomplish good without them knowing, but how He would do that I’m not sure. It would not make sense to me that the Holy Spirit goes into them temporarily to accomplish a good work and then leaves, because the Spirit is for believers (Ephesians 1). I would think it would have to be more like God orchestrating good works from the outside of unbelievers.
My bigger question is whether or not an unbeliever’s “good” works are actually good. What defines them as good? If works are good when they honor God, that would imply intent would have to be taken into consideration. Why does the unbeliever do good things? Are there selfish reasons behind their good works? If so, are those works really honoring God?
As a believer, why do I do good works? Most of the time, there is a selfish reason, rendering those good works bad, proving Paul’s point I cannot do the good I want to do. Without the Spirit, I’ll turn any good work into something selfish.
Blessings,
Kelly, you are correct by using the word control, because God is in control of all things. When we find God and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we recognize God as the omnipotent over all things. We acknowledge that God is in control of all things. Only when we humble ourselves before Him will He use us in a great and mighty way. Partnership is agreement with the Godhead, you are the vessel.
To what Cathy had to say, yes this is possible. You can read the book of Romans and see that God said, no man can deny me I have given it to them instinctively, one day every knee shall bow.
When given the opportunity, you should take a stroll through my blog and give me some feed back.
God bless you
Thanks for reading and commenting!
Your welcome, I truly enjoyed the post, I just don’t like when people try to take the Word of God out of context, or try to pervert the Scripture in any way, not on my watch. God bless you.