I don’t know why this never dawn on me until recently – I guess I’m very slow – but I’m beginning to see that God commands us to do things He KNOWS we cannot do so that we will stop relying on ourselves but rely on Him!

For example, loving God with all our heart, soul and mind. This, we CANNOT do on our own strength. If we could do it, then Christ need not have come! Also, we cannot love our neighbors as ourselves. If we could, again, Christ need not have come. For those two commands – loving God and loving others – summarize the whole law. And we know that we cannot obey the law perfectly (the only way to obey), and since we cannot obey the law perfectly, Christ came to do it for us, fulfilling it perfectly and giving us the credit if we will receive it by faith.

But, isn’t it maddening that now that the laws have been down away with, we think we can love God with all our heart, soul, and mind when the very purpose of the laws was to lead us to do that in the first place? If we couldn’t obey the laws, then we cannot obey the new law of Christ either. If we cannot conform our behavior to match with the law, we certainly cannot get our heart to match with the new law of Christ (love).

The only remedy is to look up to heaven and admit that we cannot do what God commands us to do unless we are completely born again. He needs to give us a new heart. He needs to give us a new desire. He needs to change us so that our will will change and follow the new heart.

Christ not only changes what we do. He changes what we WANT TO do! Has He done that for you?

Yes, the old man (or woman) is still hanging onto us. And we must fight. But we do not fight only through our will-power. We fight through depending on and resting upon the everlasting arms of God.

PH