Heart Tracks - Desperate

"For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." Acts 17:28.... "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." John 15:5...."I wake up every day needing Him desperately." Joni Eareckson Tada

Most of us know the truth of Acts 17:28 and John 15:5 in theory, if not in practice, in our day to day lives. When we read the above words of Tada, we are likely to think that of course she does; she's a paraplegic. Her needs are deep and she must have God fully at work in her life. We, on the other hand have full use of our faculties, physically and mentally. We have a lot of ability, a lot of talent, and a lot of strength. We can get a lot done with those. We do get a lot done with those. The question would be is what we're getting done amounting to silver and gold or wood and stubble? And more, do we realize that without Him, we are every bit as helpless as Tada?

Apocalyptic movies seem to be the rage right now. Scenes of cities, once magnificent and glorious, reduced to rubble and debris due to some cataclysmic event. Their builders are gone and forgotten, and what is left of them is being reclaimed by nature. It's as if they never were. Is there any possibility that our lives, spiritually, will end up amounting to the same? Who are we really living in and for? Ourselves....or Him? Who do we live and move in....self, or Christ? Do we really live as if all things hold together in Him....or as if all things depended upon and our held together by us? Do we give Sunday morning lip service to being weak and dependent upon Him while living the other six days trusting in our own strength and ability? We may often say that we are nothing apart from Him, but do we really live like that's so? It takes a deep level of surrender to live as nothing in order that He may be everything. Have we ever been willing to humble ourselves to that degree? Or any degree near it?

I think we are blind to the truth that in His eyes, we have no more strength or ability than does Joni Eareckson Tada. It is not her terrible accident that made her have to depend completely upon Him. She was born with that dependency. Her diving accident may have placed that reality upon her, but she would have been just as helpless without Him had it never happened at all. Self-sufficiency is an illusion and delusion that countless lives and souls are help captive by. The Bible relates how Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful and arrogant king of his day, was rendered totally powerless and helpless by God in order that he might learn that "it is heaven that rules." His pride was broken. Is ours yet to be?

Someone said that we move upward in our spiritual lives by first going downward. When we humble ourselves before Him, He in return lifts us up. When we acknowledge how truly weak we are, He in turn makes us strong in Him. The life of Tada gives witness to the truth of this. Does yours and mine? Or, are we too busy building our "cities," our kingdoms, to recognize and know that it is heaven that rules? If you're building your life on any foundation but Him, what will you do when that foundation crumbles? And it will crumble. In Him we live, move, and have our being. Is that your life testimony and reality? Or is it something you say amen to on Sunday, but forget about by Monday....and all other days as well? Every morning when we wake, we're desperate for Him. Some know that. Most don't. Are you among the "some," or the "most?"

Blessings,
Pastor O