On My Own Strength....

John 5:30
[Jesus]-
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”

cf. : 5:19 “So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
cf. ; 8:28 “So Jesus said to them, “when you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.”

This is Jesus speaking here. I want you think about whether or not you could say the same thing; “I can do nothing on my own.” Jesus was God and yet He says that He can do nothing apart from the Father. Now it seems like it would be a bit easier for Jesus because He and the Father are one; but Jesus was also fully human and as such he did battle with the human nature. Satan tempted him just as he tempts us.

Matthew 4 gives us this account:
Scripture tells us that Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. The Spirit which is being referred to here is the third person of the triune God, the Holy Spirit. He is co-eternal with God and so it is God that led Jesus to be tempted.

Now, I don't know if that raises any questions in your mind, but right there a little flag went up in my mind; “God led Jesus to be tempted!? Does this mean God leads me to be tempted?

To answer this I went to 1 Corinthians 10:12-13 which states; “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall! No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.”

God does not do the tempting; but as we remember in Job, Satan was allowed to tempt Job; “Behold, all that he has is in your hand. Only against him do not stretch out your hand.” So again we see that God, in His Sovereignty allowed for Satan to test and push Job towards unrighteousness, but Job was not given any more than he could handle, for God still sustained him.

And this is the key point that I want to draw out; it is impossible without God to stand on our own. Even Christ could do nothing apart from the Father. Likewise without the grace of God we can do nothing good. In answer to that first question, “I can do nothing on my own;” we can do nothing good our own. Unless it is through the Holy Spirit and His power in us, nothing we do has eternal value and thus is not good.

Ephesians 2:8-10 says; “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared before hand, that we should walk in them.”

If you are anything like me, it can be easy to get caught up my day to day works that I don't stop to think about my choices. Ultimately our choices either point to eternity or they point inwardly to our own works. How futile! It is possible for me to be doing “good” things, but instead of being profitable for eternity they are only profitable for this world and time. When I think back to the idea of Satan and how he has le-way to tempt us we truly must have our guards up! Go back to Matthew 4 and read the temptation of Jesus again. Satan is a deceiver. He is not obvious. He used Scripture to try and convince Christ to take a short-cut for people to see His glory. If Jesus would have followed, he would have been disobeying the Father's will for Him. Christ knew the full Word of God and was able to discern that this was what Satan was trying to do. I don't know if I would be wise enough to discern this, for I am not in the Word of God consistently enough to see if what I am hearing is fully backed up in Scripture. Satan used this verse, “ If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.'” Those were words in Scripture, but used out of context for the very next verses speak about Satan and stepping on him. Convenient that he didn't use that part, eh?

For the past few weeks it has been coming up more and more the importance of being in Scripture. Will we attend to this call? God allows for temptation to occur, so will we prepare ourselves for the battle? Or will we continue in our own works which without Christ at the center ultimately lead to death?


Be Encouraged by this:!
Hebrews 2: 18
“For because He himself was tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.”