The Will CHOOSING GOD'S CONTROL
Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Joshua 24:15.
The person who has the abiding relationship with Christ, that is, daily fellowship and communion, with the devotional life as its base, has chosen to put God in charge of his direction. Within this relationship, as God leads us upward, we are at any moment either depending totally upon His power or we are depending 100 percent on ourselves.
Satan is constantly trying to distract our attention so that we will not stay locked in on the abiding dependence upon God's power. When we begin trying to fight Satan in our own strength, when we begin to concentrate on our behavior and performance, our attention is away from Jesus, and our dependence upon His power is broken. This can happen even though the relationship with Him may be continuing day by day. Whenever our attention is on our sins and weaknesses and problems, we are overcome.
If a person chooses to have the abiding relationship with Christ, his direction will be upward. God controls it, bringing him just as quickly as possible to abiding and depending upon His power all the time. But as we grow, there are times when we look to Jesus, and times when we look away from Jesus to ourselves, even in the course of a given day.
The beautiful thing is that God does not judge our character by the occasional good deed and misdeed that come as a result of that pattern. He looks at the tendency, the direction of the life. If we deliberately choose to place ourselves under His control day by day, by seeking the relationship with Him, He will lead us to total dependence upon His power all the time. The growth in the Christian life is basically the growth in learning to stay in dependence upon Jesus more and more constantly.
If we do not choose to have the relationship with Christ day by day, if we do not understand the proper use of the will, and where to put our human effort, and if we continue to seek to fight sin and the devil on our own, then our direction will be downward. Anyone who does not have a continuing relationship with the Lord Jesus, whether he has once become a Christian or not, is giving Satan control of his direction.
Our part is to choose the ongoing relationship with Christ, until ultimately we can be led to total dependence on Jesus' power all the time.
Choose you this day whom ye will serve. Joshua 24:15.
The person who has the abiding relationship with Christ, that is, daily fellowship and communion, with the devotional life as its base, has chosen to put God in charge of his direction. Within this relationship, as God leads us upward, we are at any moment either depending totally upon His power or we are depending 100 percent on ourselves.
Satan is constantly trying to distract our attention so that we will not stay locked in on the abiding dependence upon God's power. When we begin trying to fight Satan in our own strength, when we begin to concentrate on our behavior and performance, our attention is away from Jesus, and our dependence upon His power is broken. This can happen even though the relationship with Him may be continuing day by day. Whenever our attention is on our sins and weaknesses and problems, we are overcome.
If a person chooses to have the abiding relationship with Christ, his direction will be upward. God controls it, bringing him just as quickly as possible to abiding and depending upon His power all the time. But as we grow, there are times when we look to Jesus, and times when we look away from Jesus to ourselves, even in the course of a given day.
The beautiful thing is that God does not judge our character by the occasional good deed and misdeed that come as a result of that pattern. He looks at the tendency, the direction of the life. If we deliberately choose to place ourselves under His control day by day, by seeking the relationship with Him, He will lead us to total dependence upon His power all the time. The growth in the Christian life is basically the growth in learning to stay in dependence upon Jesus more and more constantly.
If we do not choose to have the relationship with Christ day by day, if we do not understand the proper use of the will, and where to put our human effort, and if we continue to seek to fight sin and the devil on our own, then our direction will be downward. Anyone who does not have a continuing relationship with the Lord Jesus, whether he has once become a Christian or not, is giving Satan control of his direction.
Our part is to choose the ongoing relationship with Christ, until ultimately we can be led to total dependence on Jesus' power all the time.
RSS Feed
