Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Proverbs

I highlighted the following as I am reading through the book of Proverbs:

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
But fools despise wisdom and instruction."
- Proverbs 1:7

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
"
- Proverbs 3:5-6

"Ponder the path of your feet,
And let all your ways be established."
- Proverbs 4:26

They make me wonder on which path have I placed my feet! How about you?

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Total Dependence

God is constantly reminding me we must be dependent upon Him for - well everything!  If we are honest with ourselves, there have been times we believed we could make our plans and then ask God to bless them.  Perhaps you have tried to talk Him into approving of what you really wanted to do.  I believe that we have a tendency to try to get everything - including God to revolve around us.

Jesus told us in John 15:5,  “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."  It is simple.  Without Him we can do nothing.  We need Him for everything.  This idea frustrates us and our nature cries out for us to resist!  Surely there are things we can do - there must be things that we are capable of!  We resist this so strongly we import our independence into our faith.  In "Men On Their Knees, Kenneth Eaton wrote,

"Christianity becomes corrupted when we try to make life and 
God revolve around our little desires, and try to harness the vast energies 
of the divine resource to our plans and our dreams unrevised and 
unpurified by reference to the will of our Creator."

When our faith is corrupted in this way we find our lives void of the real power of God and our churches struggle to see God move in any significant way.  We live in a world that desperately needs to know God.  They need to see Him at work within us.  If we truly desire to see God at work both in and through us we must become totally dependent upon Him!