Which Path?

"Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26

I don't remember the source, whether it was something He spoke to me, or something I read or heard, but I have written in my prayer journal that, "We're not called to a hard journey in Him. We're called to an impossible one."
Let that thought sink in. If you see it as negative, discouraging, defeating, than believe it or not, that's a good thing...if you ever had any idea that you could live the life of faith in your own strength and ability. We cannot. That truth is made clear throughout the New Testament, and throughout all the words of Christ. Yet countless professing believers continue to try to live up to and out of His Word by their own efforts, and meet with failure and defeat every time. It is impossible to live the life He's called us to, created us for apart from Him. His Word says that we can do nothing apart from Him, yet we expend huge amounts of energy trying to. Why?

In the above Scripture, Jesus had just had a conversation with a rich young ruler of Israel. The man had diligently kept all the rules and regulations of the Jewish religion. Jesus commended that, but told him that one thing kept him from true life, and it was his trust and reliance upon his riches and his works. Christ asked him to give all of his wealth and abilities away, and come and follow Him. At that the young man turned away. He could give up neither. Jesus then told his watching disciples that it was very hard (nearly impossible) for a rich man to enter heaven. Not because he was rich, but because almost always, his reliance was upon those riches, as was his loyalty and trust. All of it would keep him from trusting in Christ alone. All of it would keep him from walking the cross style life that every believer is called to. His disciples then asked Him that if this were so, then who could ever be saved? And that is where we see the root of the problem. All of us, in some way, are like the rich young ruler, because we don't have to be literally rich to trust in things, people, and talents, that we will not give up in order to follow Him. The rich young ruler did well with rules and regulations. He could not handle or accept the cross, Christ's cross, that was placed before him. Can we?

Let's go back to that thought from my prayer journal. Every believer would agree that the way of the disciple is not an easy one. It is hard, but deep down, some part of us believes we can live it out. We can sacrifice, we can give, we can work. Yet at root remains an unconscious sense that we still retain a measure of control. The cross confronts this, and when confronted, we will choose the way of the rich young ruler. We'll continue to try and follow Him on our terms, lacking the fullness of His Holy Spirit power. We can do the possible. We can even do the hard. We will never do the impossible. Someone said that over 90% of what the church is doing today is being accomplished apart from the power of the Holy Spirit. We're the church. We're seeing the results of manpower, but where is the evidence of His Holy Spirit power? Worst of all is that His Word says that what we do apart from Him is just wood and stubble. It doesn't bear the fruit of eternity. How tragic to one day stand before Him and realize that the majority of our life, no matter how earnest, was spent in futility.

Yet we can take heart. We can realize, confess, that we cannot live this life of faith in ourselves. We can surrender all our cherished "treasures," laying them at His feet, at the cross, and walk with Him, relying on Him, His presence and power alone. In that we learn that there are no limitations upon Him. Nothing is impossible. All things are possible. In and with Him, and so in and with us. Are we ready to lay down our rich young ruler lives and pick up our cross in order to enter into the fullness of His life? He confronts us with that question. We know what path the rich young ruler took. Which path will be ours?

Blessings,
Pastor O