Unshackled Moments ~ March 10, 2017 ~ Self Sufficiency

The message of our culture, and even of much spirituality, is self-sufficiency. Even at times when we must acknowledge that we need help it is often looked at like the help is just to strengthen what we already posses or can do in and of ourselves. This idea is behind the lie that God helps those who help themselves and behind the message of so much self help philosophy that we should stir up that which is within and of us. And it is absolutely ridiculous.

A couple of weeks ago, a dog that weighed well over 100 pounds attacked my wife's little 20 pound Brittany Spaniel and tried to kill her. I didn't even think about standing back and waiting to see if the Brit would channel her inner big dog and defend herself successfully. I jumped in and got the attacker off her. We don't surrender to God in order to have His help for us to do what we can almost do We rely on God to do for us what we absolutely can not do on our own. God helps the helpless, the powerless.

No matter what I do, no matter what natural gifting or ability I stir up inside myself, no matter how focused, prepared or determined I become, I can not make myself free or keep myself free. And neither can you. He is our strength and our power to walk free from addictions and sin. He enables us to walk with Him and to love as we should. It is no more possible for us to do that our own than it is for water to turn itself into steam or ice.

As we go through our day and our life, let us not dig deep within ourselves to make it through and do what's right. Let us always remember that it is through Him and by His grace that we live and breathe and have our being. It is through walking in the power of the Spirit that we love and do what is right and resist the impulses of our old nature to live for self.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God...

- 2  Corinthians 3:5

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