I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. (John 15:5)
We all like to believe that we can handle life on our own. We crave independence and deeply desire to control what is going on in our lives. But the truth is, we are totally dependent on God for everything we are and everything we do, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). The fact is that we ought to fear our desire for independence, not our dependence on Him.
The world tells us that dependency is a sign of weakness. No one likes feeling weak or being seen as weak. Yet weakness is the universal condition of every person! Adam and Eve, created in their perfect state, were still weak and totally dependent on God. How much more dependent are you and I today, after Adam’s dreadful fall in the Garden, which plunged us into our own slavery to sin.
Weakness is an inescapable aspect of the human condition. God created us to need Him and depend on Him. Jesus said bluntly that apart from Him, we can do nothing. Yet even in our weakness we have all the strength we will ever need, because we have God’s strength working in us and through us. The apostle Paul rejoiced that “My very weakness makes me strong in him” (2 Corinthians 12:10 PHI). God gives us the strength we need to do everything He has called us to do. And the best way to receive God’s strength is to acknowledge how desperately we need it — not just daily, but moment by moment.
David expressed it this way in one of his God-breathed psalms:
Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright. (Psalm 20:7-8)
What have you been trusting in lately? Yourself or your Savior? Have you been fearing your dependence and weakness? We need never fear our dependence! What we absolutely must fear is the delusion of independence and strength. That illusion of autonomy is nothing more than succumbing to the serpent’s sly suggestion that “You will be like God.” We were made by God and for God, which means that God will supply us with everything we need to live the life He is calling us to live for His glory and the good of others. May this be the confession of our lives, by grace through faith in the One who died to give us life — both eternal life and everyday life.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 