Third Post

It took almost a year before I understood what that really meant. I thought that I could discipline myself to do that.  Wrong! I didn’t have a clue because I didn’t have the meat and potatoes of living the Christian life and enjoying God’s blessings of an abundant life. 

Having a somewhat athletic background I fooled myself into believing that I could muster up the effort to get with the program and be a “Real Man of God.”  After all,   I just needed to be more serious or apply a more concerted disciplined effort of following the do's and don’ts and quit being a wimp… I can do this.  Wrong again.  You see it is impossible to live the Christian Life as we often see it attempted today by truly sincere believers who are performing admirably ,  but still feel the powerless effects of some of their efforts . Charles Stanley learned many years ago while a new and thriving preacher, scholar, and leader that he was absolutely miserable and thought that he was a failure. However, God showed him that he was totally inadequate to live the Christian life and that he was doomed for failure every time he tried.  What? Charles discovered that he can’t do it, but God can and will if we surrender totally to Him and just let Him have all of us and get out of His way. What? God’s greatest works and blessings come when we are able to admit that we can’t do this ‘Christian thing”…now He has you where He wants you and can and will use you.  When the apostle Paul said that he did the things he didn’t want and could not do the things he wanted, he was recognizing this weakness in himself,( Rom. 7:14-16)   But, then he gets it because he later says that God’s strength is displayed in our weakness!

That’s it! This is what God has allowed me to discover. The simple, yet profound, recognition that I can do nothing, and I mean nothing, without God.  Oh sure, I may have skills or aptitude to earn a living, but you do understand don’t you that the skills and aptitudes were gifts from God. Everything we have, everything we do, everything…is under the Sovereignty of God.  This is how when song lyrics talk about God being the very air we breathe…He is.  So, here is another kicker. When God becomes real and close at this close friend level, it allows you to be free and experience Him like you never have before. Continued