Asides

TODAY #2–Apart from Me you can do nothing

TODAY

Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty… in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all.–That you may know what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead–I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.–“Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

John 15:5;I Chr. 29:11,12;Eph.1:19,20;Phil.4:13;Rom.7:18;1Co 1:31

In our ‘can-do’ society where competent independence is a goal to be prized and the hallmark of maturity, it’s valuable to notice that the upside-down ideals of God’s Kingdom have more to do with our dependence on His greatness than on any inherent personal competence.

Words for TODAY

TODAY

It’s easy to take for granted that God has spoken to us in His Word when you’ve grown up in church, surrounded by Christians with whom you live and move and have your being!  I was in the tenth grade in a little Christian school run by our church, taking my faith for granted, not much excited about the realities of it, when Audrey decided she wanted to become a Christian too!  She was my best friend so she asked me how to go about it.  I deferred to the youth group leader to walk her through it– to make sure it was done ‘right’.  Well, something happened.  The Bible came alive for her!  

Morning by morning she’d come to school with a wee scrap of paper for me with a verse copied out in her delightfully tiny handwriting and sometimes a note reflecting her amazement at this new-found treasure.  God used her eager child-like faith to wake me up to the wonder of His Word.  He’s still waking me up to it, morning by morning.  And here I bring my notes to share with you.  May we find His words to be life-giving and faith-sustaining as long as it is called Today. 

This post is the first of a feature I am calling Words for TODAY. Here I will share thematic collections of words from Scripture that have spoken to my heart day-by-day in the hopes that you too will find encouragement and renewed trust in our living, speaking God! –LS

Today if you hear his voice do not harden your hearts–The Lord GOD has given Me the tongue of disciples, that I may know how to sustain the weary one with a word. He awakens me morning by morning, He awakens My ear to listen as a disciple.–So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void,but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.–Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters.  Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God.

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,”
so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

Ps.95:7,8ESV; Is.50:4NASB; Is.55:11NKJV; Heb.3:12NLT; Heb.3:13NIV