God’s Part Needed

 

Our part is to trust, and God’s part is to work. His work is to deliver us from the power of sin and make us perfect in every good work to do His will. How does He do that? Like a SciFi movie where I just sit here and He zaps me? No, not like that, yet partly:

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

This means being before Him, hiding nothing and gazing into His glory. When I see Jesus with the eyes of faith and withholding nothing, His Spirit changes me. This is His indescribable saving power.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

This also means being before Him, yet in a different way. It is reading His Word and as I do, it changes the way I think. It shows me my sin and as I confess it…

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

And with forgiveness and cleansing, my old way of thinking moves out allowing God’s way of thinking to move in, to change me, for it is how a person thinks that determines their personality and actions.

Can I transform myself? Rhetorical question. Of course not. How many times do I set myself with a resolution to start a new habit, or quit doing something that annoys even me, never mind those around me? How many times do I want to be more like Jesus only to find my motivations are self-centered and not at all like His? Of course I cannot do it myself. This is why I need Jesus.

By experience and by the words of God, I’m totally convinced that becoming like Him, being transformed into a Christlike person, is not possible without Christ who has come into my life to do just that, and will do it for all who put themselves totally in His hands and trust Him without reserve.

Obviously the part of a believer is trust and Jesus does the work entrusted to Him, yet even trust is beyond my ability…

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8–9)

Faith is a gift. It is in my heart, in Christ who lives there, but the world’s skepticism and the devil’s lies, and the old nature with its desire to rule so often gang up on faith and pound it into the ground, leaving me without its focus or its power.
Reviving faith? It comes again by hearing about Jesus, reading about Him, being with other Christians who talk about His goodness, and running to Him with confession when my heart is not right.

PRAY: Lord, these days are filled with details for which I am responsible and that take so much time, added to concerns for my husband whose injury has no cure but time and may never heal, and yet to list them puts my focus on the problems. In order for the joy of the Lord to be my strength (Nehemiah 8:10), that focus needs to be on You. Yet the way my scattered mind works, I’m feeling much stress trying to deal with doing that and also taking care of the needs before me. You are my Savior and Lord — I put all of this in Your hands and ask You to sort it out and save me from all that threatens that faith and the indescribable inner joy that You have given me.