dependence on God

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I have decided to follow Jesus

I heard an inspiring story during one of my trips to India. But before I share the story, a little background. Northeast India for many decades had been known as the missionaries’ graveyard. Primarily because nearly every missionary who had moved there and attempted to establish a mission station was faced with unbelievable rejection and failure. The region has been a demonic stronghold for centuries. It was rare that any missionary team would last over one year. It is reported that many got sick and some even died. But most left defeated by an unbelievable hardness of the people’s heart toward the gospel.

Even though the region was considered closed to the gospel, somehow there was one family who became a follower of Jesus. The story is told of a man who lived in a small village in this region of India. We are not sure how he heard the gospel but he was a passionate follower of Jesus. His conversion and commitment to Christ plus his zeal for the gospel had so irritated the villagers that a mob formed. They rushed this man’s house and shoved him and his family to the public square.  The village chief questioned him about his faith and gave him and his family a chance to recant. The man didn’t know what to do. So he began to sing a song that some believe he had composed.

” I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back.”

With that his children were horrifically killed as he and his wife watched in horror. He was given another chance to recant and save his wife. Again, not knowing what to do, he sang another verse.

“Though none go with me still I will follow, though none go with me still I will follow, though none go with me still I will follow, no turning back, no turning back.”

He watched as they brutally murdered his wife. Then he was given one more chance to recant. He continued to sing.

“The cross before me the world behind me, the cross before me the world behind me, the cross before me the cross behind me, no turning back, no turning back.”

Even though that man and his family were killed that day, something remarkable happened. A seed was planted in the heart of the chief. It was a seed that began to grow over time. Then one day he gathered the villagers in that very same square and renounced his previous faith and he declared his allegiance to Jesus Christ. A celebration began to break out and the gospel spread not only through out that village but through the whole region. It spread because they had seen true faith and had seen the real character of God.

I believe this is one of the events that God used to open up this region of India. In the last couple of decades hundreds of thousands Indians have come to Christ. I have personally witnessed this incredible move of God.

Bottom Line

There are several lessons we can learn from this inspiring story.

1. When you make a decision to follow Jesus you will be called on to “draw a line in the sand”. We may not be called on to give our life in martyrdom like this family but we will be faced with a decision(s) that will set us apart from the world. Will I chose to follow Jesus absolutely or will I compromise just to keep my personal dream alive?

The world is not for us. The scripture tells us that we are ‘strangers and pilgrims’ in this world. In other words, we are not familiar with the territory (way of life), and we are pilgrims, just passing through on the way home (heaven).

2. God can take any tragedy, disappointment and turn it into an incredible victory. The principle of Romans 8:28 (“all things work together for our good”) is that God takes all of the successes, failures, unfairness, sacrifices and tragedies and is able to blend them all together to accomplish His will for your life.

For every tragedy and failure God has already gone ahead of his children to begin a process of turning our greatest hurt and disappointment into an incredible work of God.

3. Make sure you have absolutes in your life. We live in a “relative world” where the culture dictates what is right and wrong. As a committed follower of Jesus our life is dictated by absolutes. The old saying is true, “If you don’t stand for something you will fall for anything.” Absolutes encourages us to be firmly planted on the absolute faithfulness of God.

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Silent Witness

“Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ.” (Philippians 1:27 NLT)

This challenge from the Apostle Paul is a great reminder of our role as followers of Jesus. We are to live our lives as if we are already citizens of heaven. Matter of fact, positionally speaking, in Christ we are already in heaven, “we are now seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 1:6)

When I read the Philippians passage I am reminded of my responsibility to conduct myself as a yielded servant of Christ in my outward behavior. That produces what I like to call the silent witness. One of the highest compliments that I was ever given was when someone said, “There is something different about you. There is a presence that draws people to you.” I knew what that presence was, and it wasn’t my personality or a religious spirit, it was the presence of Christ.

This is a potential presence that every true follower of Christ possesses. It’s that presence that draws men and women to Christ. It’s a presence that causes unbelievers to want the peace we possess. We can’t manufacture that presence. There isn’t “5 Spiritual Steps to obtaining God’s Presence”, nor is it something that we earn by good works. Christ’s presence is only manifested as we learn to let go of our life and surrender the control of our life to Him. It happens when we practice trusting and resting in Christ as enough.

I desire to have that glow of God’s presence every moment of every day. But in reality, I know that it diminishes when I worry instead of trusting, or become fearful and stop trusting that God is in control. When I lose my temper and feel the need to set somebody straight, surely the glow fades.

God’s intention for us is to be so dependent upon Him that we willingly lay down our need to control and be in charge. Our life motto becomes, “Apart from Him I can do nothing.”(John 15). Our confidence moves from “I can do it on my own” to “with prayer and the leadership of the Spirit, in Christ I can do anything”.

Bottom Line

The Scripture tells us that “we are made complete in Him” (Colossians 2). That means when we commit to resting and trusting in the living Christ within, then we will manifest His presence and others will notice our Heavenly glow.

“For in Him we live and move and exist… (Acts 17:28)

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What Does it Mean to be “In Christ?”

What does it mean to be “in Christ”? Perhaps you have heard that term from a sermon or you may have even read it in a Christian book. Some would say that it’s just another way to say we are placed into Christ when we are born again, and that’s true. The moment we placed our faith and trust in the risen Savior, and His finished work on the cross, we are placed into Christ. But “being in Christ” means so much more. The very essence of our Christian faith is vested in the fact that we are “in Christ”. So it is vitally important to know the fuller meaning of what it means to be “in Christ”.

Space will not permit me to list all the elements of being “in Christ”, so I want to address three of the more obvious benefits of “being in Christ”.

You take on a new identity – The moment you trust Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you become someone you have never been before. That’s the reason Jesus told the Pharisee Nicodemus that you must be “born again”. (John 3:1-14) You have passed from death unto life. Before you were a pawn of Satan and now you are a child of God. ( Ephesians 2) The old person you once were is gone and you are now a new creation in Christ. ( 2 Corinthians 5:17) We now have a new nature occupied by the Spirit of the living Christ. ( Colossians 1:27)

Why is that important to know? Our identity in life is now settled. Having our fundamental identity in Christ frees us from trying to develop our identity from our occupation, achievements, our spouse or our financial statement. We no longer have to strive to measure up to some sort of religious standard to receive God’s love. God loves us because we are family.

People of every culture have asked these three questions.
1. Who am I?
2. Why am I here?
3. Where am I going?

These questions are all answered with our new identity. We know who we are, a child of the living God who is grafted into the family of God. We know why we are here, to glorify God by allowing the life of Christ in us to be manifested to the world. We know where we are going, our home is now heaven and this life is our journey till we get home. The Scriptures tell us that we are “strangers and pilgrims” in this world. A stranger is not familiar with the territory and a pilgrim is just passing through.

Your dependency changes – Before being in Christ, you depended upon your own strength. As a result, sometimes you felt like you measured up and sometimes you felt like a failure. Your sense of security was in your performance. If you performed well in your spiritual walk you felt secure, but if you stumbled you felt like a failure.

God knows our dilemma of trying to measure up, so He alleviated that struggle by allowing us to rest in Him as enough. He tells us to “cast all your care on him for he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7) God also tells us not to “worry about anything but bring it to Him in prayer with a thankful heart and he will give us peace that passes all comprehension” (Philippians 4:6-8 – my paraphrase)

We don’t have to bear the burden, because He will do it all for us. God wired us to depend on Him. The more we carry the weight of our own burdens, the more unrest and misery will be part of our daily life.

You have a shift in your worldview – “A worldview is the lens or glasses from which you view the world. Your worldview is the foundation for your values and your values are the foundation for your conduct. Your worldview is a collection of what you think about law, science, history, family, social issues, education, theology and ethics.” (Brannon Howse)

There are basically two worldview’s, a Biblical worldview and a secular worldview. Society gets their values from  one of two places, the culture or from Scripture. The secular worldview is driven by a “relative” mindset which believes that values change as the culture changes. The problem is that there are no absolutes, values are always changing, even to the point that wrong becomes right and right becomes wrong.

But for those who have been placed “in Christ” we have a different worldview. Our worldview is a Biblical worldview. A Biblical worldview is not based on the culture, or political correctness but on the absolutes of God’s Word. The lens we view life from is the Biblical perspective. If God said it, we believe and obey. Therefore, our worldview impacts our value system.

Bottom Line
Being “in Christ” is more than just another definition for being born again, it is much more. It gives us a new identity that is wrapped in God’s love and care. It allows us to never be alone in midst life’s problems. God not only knows all of our problems, but He is there to walk with us every step of the way. We have a stable worldview that gives us rest and peace. We never have to conform to societies values because we have a value system based on the absolute, never changing promises of God. He is not only our God, but He is also our “Abba/Papa” who draws us near. He cries and rejoices with us through every victory, and every trial, just because we are “IN CHRIST”.

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God Has Not Left Us Alone

“I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God’s power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler or authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church. And the church is his body; it is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.” ( Ephesians 1:19-23 NLT)

One of the challenges of living the Christian life is laying aside our self-effort mentality. Somehow along the way, most of us fail to connect “salvation by faith” and “living by faith”. We know that our salvation is vested in Christ alone but seem to have trouble connecting that living for Him is also vested in Christ alone.

God never intended for us to live our life in our own strength. Many believers live with the attitude that they will “do the best they can to live for God and then if they get in trouble they will ask for God’s help.” But God never intended for us to go it alone.

God Wants Us Dependent
Nothing pleases God more than for us to lean and depend on Him for every aspect of our life. Matter of fact, I believe that is what the Christian life is all about – turning every segment of our life over to his control. Why is that important? God can order and direct our life better than we can. He has a master plan that includes us. We were born for a specific purpose, during a specific time in history. (Psalm 139, 2 Timothy 1:7-9)

It’s clear from Scripture that God draws us to Himself so that He could empower us with “the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead …”. We have as our daily resource the power of God. This power was not given to us to better cope in this world, but it was given in order that we could live above this world. That’s because God is not only preparing a place for us, but He is also preparing us for a place.

The power of God sets us free from the entanglement of the world, but it also allows us to be content in this world knowing that we are here for a purpose. Wherever God plants us and whatever circumstances we find ourself in, God is there in that moment with the full power of heaven to help us see our way through with grace and purpose. Therefore, our end purpose in every situation is to glorify God.

Bottom Line
Are you drawing on the “…the incredible greatness of God’s power?” If not, it’s there for you; it’s found in the person of Christ who indwells you. God is poised and ready to carry you to the next level of maturity and trust. He wants you to live daily within the realm of His mighty power, trusting Him to do the miraculous.

Many years ago I heard a sermon by Evangelist John R. Rice. He was preaching about prayer and how God desires for us to live at a higher level of trust. I will never forget the illustration he gave to conclude his sermon. He said, “This is what I think will happen just after I get to heaven. After I pass through the pearly gates an angel will usher me to a huge warehouse. He will open the door to the warehouse and point to the vast array of blessings. Then he will say to me, “John, these are all the blessing you could have had if you had just asked. “

God wants us to live at a higher level of trust and dependence. He wants His children to trust Him for great things that only He can do. He wants to move us out of the “safe zone” to the “trust zone”. That will only come as we surrender our lives to His control and then begin to trust Him for the impossible.

“Satan is so much more in earnest than we are–he buys up the opportunity while we are wondering how much it will cost.”
― Amy Carmichael

“Now to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” (Ephesians 3:19 NAS)

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Dealing with Fear

As I look back on my counseling career one of the most prevalent problems I discovered among believers is the issue of FEAR. I do understand that most everyone has some sort of fear. The level of fear ranges from simple fear, like loud noises, to severe phobias like the fear of being touched.

Sociologist tells us that every person is born with two fears, the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises. Every other fear is man-made. How each person develops the different types of fear has been debated for years. I think it is a combination of how you were raised, and your worldview, as well as your primary influences such as friends, culture, and your life experiences.

Regardless of how we developed our various fears the bigger issue is how we handle our fears. Fear left unchecked will control us and will be a major factor in our day to day inner peace and our general sense of well-being. If you don’t learn to contain and control your fear your life will be characterized by fear. Fear could become a way of life.

There is not enough space in this short article to go very deep on the subject of how to deal with fear, but maybe the following observation will help.

Fear is based on the future and is generally characterized by “what might be”, rather than what is true at this moment. God’s intention for us is to live fully in the present but not in the past nor the future. When we live in the past we have a tendency to be an angry person. An angry person is usually an argumentative soul. Normal for them is to stir up disharmony and create a stressful situation.

When we live in the future we become fearful. We tend to worry about “what might be” rather than what we are experiencing in the present. When you are fearful and live in the future it causes you to “hoard or run.” You have a tendency to hoard because you fear what you might not have in the future. You run because you think if you can change the location the fear will go away.

The opposite of fear is trust and rest. Hebrews tells us that “there is a rest for the people of God…let us make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fail by following their example of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:9-11) Through Christ’s redemptive work on the cross we are given a unique opportunity to draw on God’s provision of supernatural rest. That means we now have a choice, we can worry or rest. There are not psycho-mind games to play when dealing with worry, we just learn to rest in Christ’s provision. Christ is enough.

As a committed follower of Jesus, living in fear is the ultimate insult to God’s character. I know that sounds a bit harsh but God’s provision of “Christ in us” gives us the ultimate power and ability to live victorious over fear’s domination. Fear is opposite of trust. When we choose to fear rather than trust, we are in danger of offending God’s character.

If God is all powerful, and He is, and He is all knowing, and He is, and He is everywhere, and He is, then why live in a world of “what if”? If you are living in fear then you are enslaved. It doesn’t matter what you are afraid of, or even if you don’t know what you are afraid of, the enemy is using fear to enslave and control.

When we received Christ we became someone that we have never been before. We received a new nature, became the “tabernacle” of God, and were given the ability to dominate every fear that comes our way. In Christ we are both positionally and literally fearless. (Romans 8)

So the next time you are tempted to give in to fear remember the following steps:

1. Acknowledge to God that you are indeed fearful. You realize that fear is a lack of trust in God’s ability to control your future.
2. Declare with an act of your will that this fear is inconsistent with who you are in Christ. Then cast your fear upon Christ. (1 Peter 5:7)
3. By faith, walk in your identity in Christ and take God’s peace, rest and provision.

Now here is the question you must ponder. Will you “put on Christ” and draw on the rest that is yours and be fearless, or will you choose to be controlled by fear? The choice is yours.

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him…for in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2)

“If we are to better the future we must disturb the present.”
-Catherine Booth

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Learning to Rest

Like many virtues in life, the most valuable and beneficial things come at a cost. We mess up, make mistakes and through the school of hard knocks we finally learn the lessons we wished we had learned years earlier.

One such lesson in the Christian life is the lesson of learning to rest.  God intends that the first step of every new believer is to learn to rest.  I know, that is opposite of what most of us experienced.  Most of us jumped in with both feet, with eyes wide open attempting to “do all we can do for God”.  It didn’t take long for us to experience burnout.  When we couple a little weariness with church problems we come to the point where we say, “There has got to be more to the Christian life?”  At this point, the result is sometimes church burnout.

Why does this burnout stage occur? Some would say that we took on too much too quickly.  Others would say there were spiritual maturity issues; we needed to grow more before we attempted to do church work.  Those may have been contributing factors, but I think the main problem is we neglected the resting stage.

It is instinctive to human nature to begin the process of “doing” as soon as we have a meaningful spiritual experience such as salvation.  We have heard the good news of the gospel, it has impacted our life, now we must get busy and tell someone else.  We are correct that we should tell others, that is a mandate for all committed followers of Christ. However, the first step in the Christian walk is not doing but rather learning to rest.

The principles of Scripture teach that our degree of success in ministry is directly connected to how much we learn to rest. The Apostle Paul so eloquently portrays that truth in Ephesians:

“…He(God) raised Him(Jesus) from the dead, and made him to sit at his right hand in heavenly places far above all rule, and authority, and power, and dominion…(1:17-21)

“And raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus… (2:6-9)

Notice that God first made Jesus to sit, then his made us to sit with Him. As Watchmen Nee writes in his book Sit, Walk and Stand, “Christianity does not begin with walking but with sitting.”
Jesus sat down at the right hand of the Father because his work was finished. He paid the debt for our sin once and for all.  No more sacrifices, no more burnt incenses, no more entering in the Holy of Holies once a year to apply the blood to atone for sin.  Man’s futile attempt to keep the law was now fulfilled in Jesus.

We first see the principle of resting in creation.  God made everything in six days. At the end of the sixth day He made man.  On the seventh day God rested. That means that man’s first full day on earth was a day of rest.

Why is our first duty as a believer to learn to rest? Why is resting so important to God? Listed below are five key reasons that resting is important to every committed follower of Jesus.

  1. Resting is an indication that we understand that our salvation is a work of God’s grace and not our self-effort. Our good deeds, learning the catechism or being baptized will not get us to heaven. Salvation is only received as a free gift, we can’t earn it. It is only through accepting by faith Jesus’ finished work on the cross, in our behalf, can we receive this free gift of salvation.
  2. Resting is the acknowledgment of our absolute dependence upon Him.  Apart from the living Christ within us, we can do nothing. (John 15:5) Our ability and power to be fruitful is directly related to being connected to the true vine, which is Christ.
  3. In resting we realize that our power to bear spiritual fruit comes from a higher source. Our talent and ability is practically useless unless it has been empowered by the Holy Spirit. The scripture teaches us that we are to be filled with the Spirit of God for effective and fruitful ministry. (Ephesians 5:18)
  4. Resting is a time to realize that the same Holy Spirit that drew us to Christ has formed a union with us. He is our companion 24/7. He leads and guides us toward truth, He goes before us and prepares our daily path, and He opens the hearts and minds of those we come in contact with. He prepares their heart for what He will lead us to say to them.
  5. Resting prepares our heart to have fellowship with the God of the universe. It is in those quiet moments of resting that we hear His tender voice and we receive those gems of wisdom and sense His overwhelming love.

As you can see, resting is an important step in preparing us for effective ministry. If we “hit the ground running” we can get so busy doing good that we may miss God. Make no mistake about it, the Lord wants us to be proactive in the kingdom, but not before we learn to rest. You can be more productive in five minutes with the power of God on your life, because you have spent time resting, than you can in five years of working in your own strength.

“Let us therefore be diligent to enter into that rest…”(Hebrews 4)

For more on this subject of resting, I suggest you purchase a copy of the little booklet by Watchman Nee entitled, “Sit, Walk and Stand.” You can find copy at most Christian bookstores or you can order from Amazon. It is available in Kindle format.