"I Can't! I Can!" Part 2 "We"

(We just sent this one out earlier this year, and have repeated the theme on numerous occasions.  But it seemed to fit so well with yesterday's message, I decided to send it again.  Glen)

"I Can't!  I Can!"

Part 2

"We"

     In the believer's relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, what is His part, and what is our part?

     No simplistic explanations suffice to answer this question, as evidenced by the Apostle Paul's fascinating declaration of life in Christ, written to the Galatians (2:20).

    

   "I am crucified with Christ."  Paul is dead and gone.

    "Nevertheless I live."  Paul rises from death and returns.

    "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me."  Paul leaves again, declaring that his Lord has taken active residence in his heart.

    "The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me."  Again, Paul returns to live.  However, the circle of life in the Lord Jesus culminates in Christ living in Paul, and Paul living through Christ.

     Paul's accounting of life in Christ reflects the New Testament teaching that the Spirit of the Lord Jesus lives in us so that we may live through Him.  "In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him" (I John 4:9).  The Christian life therefore involves not only the Lord Jesus and not only us.  Life is rather a "we."   The Spirit of Christ indwells, motivates, leads and enables. The spirit of the believer responds in faith, submission, and confident anticipation that we are powerfully enabled through Christ to trust and obey God.

    Emphasis solely on the life of Christ inevitably leads to passivity and failure to access the power of God already provided to every believer (II Peter 1:3).  Emphasis solely on our own dedication and determination leads to pride if we believe ourselves to be successful, and despair when our failures reveal our weakness apart from the Lord Jesus (John 15:5).  How, therefore, are we to understand His role in living within us, and our role in responsive living to His dynamic presence?  

     This question of all questions requires a lifetime to answer.  We must increasingly discover the wonder of life lived as a "we" rather than simply a "He" or a "me."  There is no more fulfilling or joyous experience of living, and in real terms, there is no other genuine life.  The Spirit of Christ lives in us so that we may live through Him.  We must grow in the grace and knowledge of a Savior whose indwelling presence does not annihilate us, but rather actualizes the God-given gifts and faculties of our humanity.  Again, the holy process and dynamic of life in Christ proclaims with Paul, - I die.  I live.  Yet not I.  Christ lives in me.  I live by Christ.  We!

"We shall live with Him by the power of God."

(II Corinthians 13:4)

Weekly Memory Verse(s)

    "Without Me, ye can do nothing… I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

(John 15:5; Philippians 4:13)

"I Can't! I Can!"

(A discussion with a friend reminded me of this one, a repeat from 2013)

"I Can't!  I Can!"

     Born again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ live in an interesting duality of "I can't" and "I can."

    "Without Me, ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).

    "We are weak in Him" (II Corinthians 13:4).

    "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13).

    "I also labor, striving according to His working, which worketh in me mightily" (Colossians 1:29).

    I cannot!  I can, through Him!  Both these spiritual sensibilities must fill our hearts and minds as we seek to trust and obey God.  Indeed, His standards are so high that we could not begin to fulfill them by ourselves.  "His way is perfect" (II Samuel 22:31).   Never, however, did our Lord expect or call us to fulfill such an impossibility.  He rather fills us with the Spirit of His Son when we believe, leading and enabling us to godliness as we trust and submit ourselves to Him.  Thus, we forever maintain within our hearts and minds the acknowledgement of "I can't."  We do not stop there, however, but rather affirm our weakness as the vessel and branch of Christ's empowering presence and involvement.   As the Lord declared to the Apostle Paul, "My strength is made perfect in weakness" (II Corinthians 12:9).  Thus, we confess, "I can, through Christ."

    This understanding is vital.  If we believe ourselves to be independently capable of even the slightest act of godliness, we will crash upon the rocks of futility.  Conversely, if we fail to accompany our "I can't" with "I can, through Christ," we will surrender to passivity and fail to avail ourselves of the indwelling Holy Spirit's enabling grace.  Indeed, the Christian life involves not Christ alone, or ourselves alone, but rather the Spirit of the Lord Jesus walking in us so that we might walk through Him.

    "I will dwell in them and walk in them" (II Corinthians 6:16).

    "Walk ye in Him" (Colossians 2:6).

    I recall a discussion with a young man who struggled with Scripture's lofty commands, as we all do at times.  "I just can't consistently do them!" he cried.  I told him that I fully understood the challenge he faced, and that he was half right in his cry of futility.  "It is true that apart from the Lord Jesus, you cannot obey God's commands."  I let that thought sink in, and then continued.  "However, the truth of the matter is that as a born again Christian, you are not apart from the Lord Jesus!  No, He dwells in you by His Spirit to enable all faithfulness and godliness.  He lives in you so that you may live through Him.  Therefore, let your awareness of "I can't" serve as the basis of confidence and faith: "I can, through Christ!"

    The New Testament epistles declare this blessed duality of Truth throughout their pages, both directly and implicitly.  We must affirm the reality in heart and mind, humbly acknowledging our weakness and confidently affirming the power of God as present and active in our hearts.  The proud will sneer at this Scriptural light as it strikes at the heart of self-sufficiency.  The passive will find it decidedly challenging as it eliminates all excuses for unbelief and disobedience.  "I can't."  This is true, but it is not the full and final ray of light in so vital a matter as faithfulness to God.  "I can, through Christ!"  Such a gift of grace completes the understanding that must guide us to a life as God intends it to be.  Thereby our Lord saves us from both pride and passivity, and thereby a far more consistent relationship with Him blesses our lives with the joy of faith and faithfulness.

"In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him."

(I John 4:9)

Weekly Memory Verse(s)

    "Without Me, ye can do nothing… I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."

(John 15:5; Philippians 4:13)

The Saturday Series - 37 - “Dependent and Free"

(Friends:  Most Saturdays for the duration of this year, I plan on sharing a message that relates to the character and nature of God, and our response thereunto.  I hope you will find it helpful, and as always, thanks for allowing us to send the devotionals to you.  Glen).

The Saturday Series - 37

"Dependent and Free"

   God made us for total dependence on Himself - "He is thy life… Without Me, ye can do nothing" (Deuteronomy 30:20; John 15:5).  He also made us with the capacity for exercising our dependency by faith - "The word is nigh thee, even in thy heart and in thy mouth, that is, the word of faith which we preach" (Romans 10:8).  Thus, we must personally relate to Him in trust and submission if we are to experience the reality of both God and ourselves.  We are not merely machines with no role in our relationship with God, but rather living persons who either respond or do not respond to His movings upon our hearts.  "When Thou saidst, Seek ye My face; my heart said unto Thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek" (Psalm 27:8).

   This speaks much to the nature of our Creator.  Anyone with a lesser character would never have made beings who might rebel against him.  The risks are too high, the consequences too great, and the need for such creatures non-existent.  Only the God who "is love" would have granted such freedom (I John 4:8).  Indeed, love seeks relationship and real fellowship.  "Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love Him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him" (John 14:23).  If God were not who He is, such "abode with him" would hold no interest for Him.  He would have formed us as mere machines to do His bidding no less than the computer that automatically responded as I typed the words you are reading.  

    Consider the most vivid and poignant implication of freedom.  "Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain" (Acts 2:23).  Our Heavenly Father well knew that creating us with the capacity to rebel would lead to our choice to do so, and far more, to the tortured agony and death of His beloved Son on the cross of Calvary.  There God would smite the Lord Jesus with the full fury of His wrath against sin, and there He would utterly abandon Him to die alone: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?!" (Matthew 27:46).  How much does our loving fellowship with God mean to Him?  Look to Calvary, where for our sakes the Savior cried out into the darkness for His Father and the Holy Spirit.  He received no answer so that we might be freely received at the throne of grace, never to be ignored.  As we exercise our God-formed capacity to come by faith in the Lord Jesus, we may approach the Throne with confidence and assurance our presence is welcomed, welcomed gladly.  "We have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" (Romans 5:2).

    We seek to trust our Heavenly Father completely - "with all thine heart" (Proverbs 3:5).  Thereby we access the enabling to relate to Him in a manner that is authentic and free, but which is also empowered by the One to whom we relate.  David declared it most succinctly - "I will love Thee, o Lord my strength!" (Psalm 18:1).  We thus relate to God in real relationship, while attributing the glory for such freely exercised capacity to Him.  Again, only the God of Scripture, the living and true God, would have made us for this Life of our lives, and this pleasure He finds in the loving fellowship of creatures such as ourselves.  

"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me."

(Revelation 3:20)

Weekly Memory Verse 

    Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.

(Psalm 90:2)