"Listen to Me, O house of Jacob,
And all the remnant of the house of Israel,
Who have been upheld by Me from birth,
Who have been carried from the womb:
Even to your old age, I am He,
And even to gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made, and I will bear;
Even I will carry, and will deliver you."
God is speaking to the people of Israel by the Holy Spirit through the prophet Isaiah. He is reminding them that He created them and has sustained them so far. Yet the nation of Israel was turning to idols for help. Paul addresses the same thing in Galatians 3:3 when he asks the churches of Galatia; "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh?" The LORD is stating the same thing through both Paul and Isaiah; we were created and have been begun (both physically and spiritually) by God's power and grace, yet in our pride we think to depend not on Him but on ourselves.
I am thoroughly convinced that there exists only one sin, pride, because it is the very expression of our abandonment of God to pursue our own means. The Bible is full of examples of arrogant people who are humbled by the Most High God. I am also convinced that you and I do not realize the full extent of our pride, of our sinfulness. We do not yet fully believe that God both can and will provide for us. Instead we still foolishly believe that we can provide for ourselves. How foolish we are! Jesus tells us in
John 15:5 that "without Me you can do nothing." Are we so wrapped up in ourselves that we can not see the plain truth of what He is saying here? I am constantly faced with my pride and humbled by my sinfulness. I pray that you will be too.
As you know from the
book review I posted a while ago, my Dad wrote a book titled "
If God Disappears." I happened upon another review of my father's book and the reviewer's opinion sparked my interest so I starting reading through his other postings and came across a post entitled "
We Are Not Controlled by the Spirit." The following quote is from that post; "We are always given the freedom to judge and to control ourselves. This could sound like self effort. It is not. But it is self governance and self determination. When we choose to follow Christ, He gives us the ability to obey Him and will direct us in His plan for our lives. But until we ask, He does not give it."
That is self effort. The blog I mentioned is only an example, a sign, of all the people around the world who believe this same doctrine; that of self salvation. Notice that his quote does not mention at all the power of God's grace or the work of Christ. Instead it is focused inward, on his own abilities. Indeed it is self reliance. So many are deceived into believing that Jesus Christ is merely a tool. How wrong they are!
Earlier in Isaiah he recounts the boastings of Sennacherib king of Assyria against Israel and against the Holy One of Israel. He recounts God's rebuke of Sennacherib in
37:26-29;
"Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.
"But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
Because your rage against Me and your tumult
Have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back
By the way which you came."
This is just one passage that magnifies God's sovereignty. He appointed the king of Assyria from ancient times (i.e. before the beginning of time) to destroy many wicked nations yet punished the king for his pride against the Almighty God. God punished him because he did not comprehend that he was merely a tool. Instead the king was so presumptuous as to think that he had the divine mandate to destroy Israel and that God was merely a tool to use and discard.
Yet this is how so many people live. They proclaim themselves to be Christians yet believe in the doctrine of self salvation. They believe that their choice, and not God's choice, saved them. They believe that by their own power they choose God, even though the Bible clearly says in
Psalm 14:2-3 that;
"The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men,
To see if there are any who understand, who seek God.
They have all turned aside.
They have together become corrupt;
There is none who does good,
No, not one."
No one seeks God by their own choice, by their own power. Jesus tells the Jews in John 6:44 that "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day." It is clear. I am not saved because I chose God. I am saved because God knew me intimately, chose me and
then created me (
Psalm 139). God made me alive and drew me to himself. I was once dead in my trespasses, I knew only sin. Now I am alive and I glorify God because of my salvation. My pride wants to have me believe that I contributed to my salvation, but the Bible is clear; God receives all the glory for my salvation.
My flesh tempts me toward 'self governance and self determination' but God directs me towards submission to Christ and dependence on Him for
all things. There is no room for my pride in that. Instead I should be glorifying God in
all things. Fortunately God has promised that He will conform me to the image of Christ (
Romans 8:29) so even in my failure, my prideful sin, I can praise God for I know that what He promises He will also accomplish. I am unbearably prideful against God, yet God is full of mercy and grace. I am still alive today because of the grace of God. I am still alive today because God has sustained me every day of my life. I am still alive today because God chose me before the foundation of the world to be His. I will live on by the sustaining power of God's grace in my life until it is God's will that I return home to Him. Praise God!
I add as a last word, to be clear and to not deceive, that we should strive to obey God, by God, as an act of worship toward God.
2 John 6 makes it clear that obeying God is done out of our love for God. God gets glory both from our obedience and from correcting and forgiving us when we disobey. But Paul repeatedly points out in the New Testament that we should not abuse our freedom in Christ. Instead our salvation should motivate us toward a Christ centered life. Done.
*Jaiqu
