The Thing I Can’t Do

I got to thinking the other day that the things in my life that cause me the most stress are the things I can’t do. Waiting on other people’s response, a problem I can’t solve on my own, a task I’m not equipped to perform. If it is up to me I can do it or not do it and it really doesn’t bother me either way since I have the control. But when I don’t have control, when I too weak, too incompetent, too dependent, it bothers me since it emphasizes my weakness. I stress since I’m so helpless to do the thing I know needs doing.

I wonder if that is why the Scriptures tell us over and over again to trust in the saving power of Jesus. If there is anything we can’t do it is to save ourselves by ourselves. We are too sinful, too weak, too lacking. I can try to my utmost but I will always be lacking. Yet with the sacrifice of Christ, I can make it.

For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:3

There is no more sad fate than try to overcome the mountain of sin and sliding back down again and again. This Sisyphean effort will bring a lifetime of misery outside of Christ. Yet in Christ, we have what we need to solve the problem we can’t solve on our own. He has given us everything we need (2^nd Peter 1:3) to live a life unburdened from what we can’t do and to live for what we know can.

Don’t live under the stress up incompleteness. Live in the joy of a salvation provided by God.

Comments

Until Midnight

In Acts 20, there is the tragicomic event surrounding a young man by the name of Eutychus. He did what a lot of folks before and after him did, he fell asleep during a sermon. Unfortunately, he was setting in in the third story window at the time. So instead of nodding off and hitting the pew in front of him, he fell to his death. The good news was the apostle Paul was delivering the sermon and had the ability to bring him back. I don’t know, however, if we can judge Eutychus too harshly. The sermon had gone on till midnight. Paul wouldn’t finish it up till daybreak. That’s a long lesson. I know some folks that might want to jump out of a window if I had a lesson that long, yet these Christians wanted to be there to hear Paul. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pushing for all night sermons but I think we might need to adopt these folks' dedication. They knew that Paul was only in town for a limited time only and they were determined to ...

The Gift You Give Yourself

I always hated buying gifts for my Mom. If I got her something like a new set of pans, it was like saying “Here’s something you can use to go make me something to eat”. A gift for her was seemingly a gift for me. There are however gifts you give that benefit you more than the receiver. For example, forgiveness. When you give it, you are giving it to yourself as much as you are giving it to them. Jesus said that when we forgive others it means God is forgiving us our wrongs (Matthew 6:14-15). I once read: “ Heaven is where everyone's forgiven. Hell is where nobody's forgiven. So, when we forgive we pull heaven down into our lives. When we withhold forgiveness, we pull hell up into our lives ” Give yourself something nice today, Forgive.

Why Does A Lion Tamer Use a Chair?

Ok, I know you have seen the image. A lion tamer enters in the cage of the beast and forces it to obey his commands using a whip, a gun and a chair. Now you can see how the whip and gun could come in handy but you might be wondering why a chair would intimidate an animal as powerful as a lion? Clyde Beatty taming a lion with a chair It's not that the lion is afraid of the chair -- it's that the lion is confused by the chair. Cats are single-minded, and the points of the chair's four legs bobbing around confuse the lion enough that it loses its train of thought. Casually put, the chair distracts the lion from wanting to claw the lion tamer's face off. The powerful creature could destroy the chair in moment’s notice but instead it is distracted into submission. It’s not too much different than how Satan controls us today. By the power of God we could overcome anything that he would use to subdue us. We can overcome the evil one (1 st John 2:13-14). ...

Ecclesiastes 12:10

Search This Blog