is by comparing ourselves to others, instead of to Jesus, the Standard, the Perfect One. “Be perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect,” commanded Jesus. Wait, that’s impossible! Bingo. Impossible to enter the Christian life, and impossible to live the Christian life. I need the convicting work of Jesus’ Spirit 24/7, not just for Sunday morning, not just for the big decisions in my life. I need dependency on Him in every detail of my life, all day long, asking Him and thanking Him about evathang. His life, lived through me, so I’m amazingly joyful and peaceful, wowing those around me, as I operate by His power, not my puny power. No credit/glory to me. All to Jesus.
Dependency is impossible, except when the Spirit freshly convicts me of my sin of independence, and even then, my temporary dependency is a pseudo-dependency, farrr from perfect. There’s a dark side, a sinful side, to my motivation for even the most-noble, most-seemingly-selfless things I’ve ever done in my life. Only as the Spirit freshly convicts me, opening my eyes to my failure at perfect dependency, does the imputed worthiness of Jesus become something precious to me. As long as I’m deceived about my failure, my pseudo-obedience, pseudo-following Jesus, pseudo-dependency, I will cherish my own worthiness/performance and find the imputed worthiness of Jesus unsatisfying to me. How can I tell? When I’m frustrated, discouraged, fearful, or bored. Hurried, intense. Jesus and His worthiness are something to me, but not everything, until I see clearly my failure at perfect dependency. Confession brings sanity, peace, joy unspeakable. And when it doesn’t, there’s more to confess I don’t yet see.
–DumbSheepDave, blissfully dependent, on occasion, as the Shepherd’s Spirit freshly convicts him of the sin of independence, hoping the pre-believers around him are noticing the difference in 2014
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