Do you have the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? When it comes to the new dilemma God has put before you, are you relying on yourself in any way?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is the kind of rigorous self-examination God expects. When you say to yourself, \u201cI can\u2019t live a holy life,\u201d you let yourself off the hook too easily. It\u2019s true that you<\/em> can\u2019t make yourself holy, but you can always decide to let Jesus make you holy. Perhaps, like the Israelites in Joshua 24:19, you \u201care not able to serve the Lord\u201d because your sinfulness and rebellion are too great. Yet it is always possible for God\u2019s almighty power to work melalui<\/em> you. You simply have to put yourself in the proper place\u2014the place where you are right with him. Are you sufficiently right with God to expect him to manifest his wonderful life through you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe people said to Joshua, \u2018No! We will serve the Lord\u2019\u201d<\/em> (v. 21). The decision to serve isn\u2019t an impulse but a deliberate commitment. You say, \u201cGod can\u2019t possibly have called me<\/em> to this. I\u2019m too unworthy. He can\u2019t mean me.\u201d He does mean you. The weaker you are, the better. The person who has something besides God to trust in doesn\u2019t come anywhere close to saying, \u201cI will serve the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n We say, \u201cIf only I could truly believe.\u201d The point is \u201cIf only I akan<\/em> believe.\u201d No wonder Jesus Christ puts so much emphasis on the sin of unbelief: \u201cHe did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith\u201d (Matthew 13:58). If we really believed that God meant what he said, what would we be like? Do I dare let God be to me all he says he will?<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you have the slightest reliance on anything other than God? Is there a remnant of reliance left on any natural virtue, any set of circumstances? When it comes to the new …<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":2118,"template":"","collection":[],"class_list":["post-2622","modern-classic","type-modern-classic","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/modern-classic"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/modern-classic\/2622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/utmost.org\/id\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/collection?post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}