"The Best He Can"

 

     "I'm doing the best I can!"  We've all likely said it, responding to pressures from others, or even from ourselves, to do more or better. 

 

     Certainly it's true that we can only do what we can do, and no more.  Or is it?

 

    "We shall live with Him by the power of God" (II Corinthians 13:4).

 

    For the born again believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting and submitted to God, we are enabled to "do the best He can."  By Biblical definition, being a believer means that we no longer trust in ourselves or our own understanding and abilities.  We rather see ourselves as branches of a Vine verdant and vital with the life of that God who creates and sustains an almost infinitely vast universe by merely speaking.  "My expectation is from Him" exulted the David who would never have slain Goliath had he merely lived by the paltry power of "I'm doing the best I can!" (Psalm 62:5).

 

   "Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee" (I Samuel 17:45-46).

 

     The best God could do against the giant was to deliver a mere stone slung by the mere hand of a mere boy into the forehead of the Philistine champion.  Goliath lost his head because David realized that in the scope of God's will, his best was his Lord's best.  "For by Thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall" (Psalm 18:29).

 

     What will God's best be for us in this day?  We don't know as yet, but we will as we trust and submit ourselves to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The living God dwells within us, and He loves to reveal His strength in our weakness (II Corinthians 12:9).  As did David, we must expect that this will be the case in the particular arenas of challenge where our own Goliaths await us.  We do not live by the best of our own wisdom, but by the wisdom of God.  We do not live by the best of our own willingness, but by the willingness of God.  We do not live by the best of our own planning, but by the planning of God.  And we do not live by the best of our own ability and strength, but "we shall live with Him by the power of God."  Such is the grace bestowed upon all who believe in the Lord Jesus, and such is the gift of a life lived not by the best we can, but by the best He can.

 

"We had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead."

(II Corinthians 1:9)