Does God ever command us to do something we cannot do? “Of course not!” you say. Why would God command us to do something knowing that we can’t carry it out? I, as a father, would not tell my 10 year old to solve a Calculus problem. That would be cruel!

But God DOES command us to do something we cannot do!

“Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit!” Ezekiel 18:31

This, we cannot. The Israelites, to whom this was commanded, demonstrated their inability to obey this command by continuing to sin and paying for it with their lives. But the stronger argument is the coming of Jesus our Savior. If we could obey this command and make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit, then why did Jesus come to die on our behalf? It is precisely because we couldn’t make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit that Jesus had to come to do it for us. If I tell my 10 year to solve a Calculus problem, it’s because I want her to come to me for help.

We never graduate from Jesus. We never outgrow our need for Him. In fact, the more we grow, the more we feel the need for Him. And not only the need, but also the delight. Ultimately, that is what will keep us being Christians. Not our will-power to keep living moral lives, but our desire being changed by the delight we feel in communing with Jesus.

But it will take some will-power to get up in the morning and open our Bible before we click on our smartphone.

PH