Depending on God (ii)

So the question becomes, ‘how?’ how can we depend on Jesus? what does that sort of life look like? James tells us in 4:15. ‘instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills we will live and do this or that.’ Again the sin issue here is not planning the future, it’s not planning a future with God at it’s centre. Instead of saying we will go here, we should say, if God wills it, we will go here. If God allows us we will go here, if God is for the idea, we will do it. We must learn to depend on God because our lives are in God’s hands. We only live physically because God wills it. God wills that our brain tells ou heart to pump blood around our body. God wills that we don’t fall down dead. And it’s only by God that we live spiritually. God gives us our salvation that He had bought, we don’t earn it, it’s from God.

Do you try to remember that on a daily basis? Do you try to remember that your life is wholly in God’s hands? Paul did regularly. In Acts 18:21 he writes, ‘I will return to you again, if the Lord wills.’ In 1 Corinthians 4:19 he writes, ‘I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills.’ He knew that His life was totally in God’s hands, and He depended on God because of it.

James says we will live and we will do. When we do, we do with God as the focus. All our activities and all our accomplishments are in God’s hands. Not yours. Not your parents. Not your teachers. God’s. Ephesians 2:10 says that God has prepared good works for us to walk in beforehand. And if we depend on God we are immortal until we are finished with those works. Paul had preached the Gospel to the ends of the Earth, and he died, Stephen preached the Gospel to the leading Jews, and he died.

Only as you depend on God will you life a live worth living, and doing things worth doing.  So are you depending on God? Or are you like the businessman in verse 13, distant from God and not relating anything you do to Him? Make your plans, make bold plans, challenging plans, exciting plans, but make sure you depend on God for the success of your plans. Make sure you depend on God as you make your plans.

And remember, as you live, work, rest and play, how secure you are. Isn’t it wonderful  to know that it’s God who governs our future not our enemies, not nature, not chance, not us, but our good, Heavenly Father. Why would we want to depend on anyone, or anything else?