Can I do this?

As I am challenged daily to not conform to this world but to be renewed in my mind and be like Christ the question is raised.  Can I be spiritual? Can I love with God’s love? Can I die to my own desires and selfishness and live for God and His will and heart? Can this be done? And can I, of all people, do it?

The disciples asked a similar question in Matthew 19, after Jesus was describing the difficulty a rich man would have in entering the kingdom the disciples responded this way, “The disciples were staggered. ‘Then who has any chance at all?’ Jesus looked hard at them and said, ‘No chance at all if you think can pull it off yourself. Every chance in the world if you trust God to do it.’” Matthew 19:25-26 The Message

And there is the answer to the question. Can I do it? Absolutely not. But God in me can.

Colossians 1:27-28 says:

“To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” ESV (emphasis mine)

This verse shows me that the only way I can ever realize “the hope of glory”, ever become “mature in Christ” is through Christ in me.  I must cooperate with His leading, repent of my sin, and draw close to Him but the power to do it is His alone and I must “trust God to do it” as Jesus says in Matthew 19.

So what is my part then? How do I obey what God tells me to do? How did Jesus do this? Hebrews 5:7-8 gives us this answer:

^“In the days of His flesh [Jesus] offered up definite, special petitions [for that which He not only wanted but needed] and supplications with strong crying and tears to Him Who was [always] able to save Him [out] from death, and He was heard because of His reverence toward God [His godly fear, His piety, in that He shrank from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the Father]. Although He was a Son, He learned [active, special] obedience through what He suffered.”

He prayed and asked the Father for everything and trusted Him to do it. Indeed, He shrank from the horrors of separation from the bright presence of the Father. And when I do that, the question about what I can or cannot do becomes irrelevant. What is relevant, what matters, is God; spending time with Him and trusting Him to do what only He can do. And that is my challenge. Romans 8:5-8 puts it this way:

“Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.” The Message

I am challenged to just focus on God and trust Him knowing that He who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it.

Note: I think it is a very important part to remember that even Jesus learned obedience through what He suffered, and there is so much more in Hebrews 5:7-8 than what I touched on but that is a different challenge altogether!