RESURRECTION COMMUNITY CHURCH
John 15:5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.(The Message)
GRACE
The Bible calls God, “the God of all grace.” Grace is not just a THING God does, it is a characteristic of God Himself. Thus, God is a God who GIVES – it is His nature to give free of charge. But God will not give free of charge if His giving will do spiritual harm to those who receive. Thus, in most cases, we must become rightly related to God before God can give, and before we will receive. That right relationship is that we become fully dependent upon God.
We see this principle in the Truth of grace. The only way to receive grace is if you have nothing to give in return. You must be fully dependent upon God. The moment you try to buy grace, or merit grace, you cannot see or recognize grace. But the moment you realize your utter helplessness and dependence upon God, you will embrace grace. Thus, we see the relationship God desires. He wants to provide. But we must be dependent.
The Truth stands: God wants a relationship with us wherein we are fully dependent upon Him for everything, so that He can be fully sufficient to us for everything. This isn’t simply something that God thinks would be nice. IT IS HIS GOAL. It is the ONLY POSSIBLE outcome of fellowship and oneness with God! God wants us to be dependent, indeed, the Holy Spirit wants to MAKE US dependent upon God. And then God can give to us all that fits into His Will and Purpose for our lives.
PROVISION
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would lead us into all Truth. Well, the Truth is that man was created to depend upon God and find full provision for everything IN and FROM Him. There simply isn’t any other Truth, or version of the Truth out there. Thus, if we want to walk in Truth, and move into a true relationship with God, full dependency upon God is where we are going to end up. This is actually good news.
Now, if you just think about this for a moment, the ramifications of this Truth are off the chart. For if God wants us to be fully dependent upon Him, then there must be something else that is likewise true: God wants to fully provide for each of us. Sure. If God wants us to be dependent upon Him it is unto a purpose. That purpose is that He wants to provide for us in every way to accomplish that purpose.
You really cannot have one without the other. Indeed, the Christian life is to express the fullness of both: Dependency upon God, and God’s provision for us. This is TRUE relationship.
Think about it. What kind of a God would tell us to depend upon Him, and then NOT provide? What kind of God would demand dependency, and then say, “Ok, I’ve got you dependent upon me. Now, I’m done. You are on your own.” No. God’s desire that we depend upon Him is absolutely based on the fact that God wants to provide for us.
*What we see here ought to be more than obvious. We see that the reason God wants us to depend upon Him is BECAUSE He wants to provide.
GOD’S WILL
It is GOD’S WILL that He provide for us. I say that because many people, even many professing Christians, think that God is hesitant, even difficult, when it comes to this matter of provision. But He is not. If there is one Truth that we find in the Bible, and which characterizes God, it is that He wants to provide, give, and bless. As I said, it is GOD’S WILL that He provide for us.
But again – there is the flip side of this Truth. It is likewise GOD’S WILL that we DEPEND upon Him for His provision – IN EVERYTHING. This is FAITH. How often in scripture does God continually exhorts us to trust Him? How often He says it is foolish to NOT trust Him. So as I said, it is GOD’S WILL that we depend upon Him for everything, as it is GOD’S WILL that He provide.
So what we see is that God wants us to depend upon Him for everything, and God wants to provide everything for us. The two go hand in hand. This is the TRUE relationship between man and God because it is a relationship that manifests the TRUTH.
Now, having said all of that, we come to a problem. We might even say that it is an impasse of sorts. Have you recognized it yet? That problem is this: We cannot make this happen. You and I cannot make ourselves dependent upon God. And you and I certainly cannot drag down from heaven God’s provision. Oh, we may develop religious exercises and gimmicks that we think will do the trick; i.e. praying, fasting, ‘name it claim it’. But the relationship that God desires of full dependency is one that cannot be created by man. God must do this through a work of the Holy Spirit.
This is quite ironic and amazing. Not only must we become fully dependent upon God, but we are actually utterly dependent upon Him TO MAKE US dependent upon Him! Do you see that? We are dependent upon God to make us dependent. We really are, and the sooner we realize this, the better.
Many Christians don’t understand the Truth on this matter. In fact, most legalism is based upon ignorance of this Truth. I have known people, for example, who try to make themselves dependent upon God by giving away everything they own. This won’t work – not unless God specifically brings you to that point and you know this is what He is requiring. But even then, it isn’t the discarding of possessions that is making you dependent. Rather, for you, this is necessary to walk with God. I’ve known many Christian people who have little, or nothing, but they aren’t dependent upon God. They are actually bitter and resentful towards Him.
Someone once said that it is not wrong to own possessions, but what is dangerous is if those possessions own you. This is true. But whether we have much or little, the Holy Spirit will absolutely seek to make us dependent upon God for what we DO have – and for what we continue to have. God will not ultimately tolerate it if we are possessed by anything in this life except HIM. HOW God does this may vary from individual to individual. But it will be His goal.
So all of this is really pretty simple. God wants us dependent upon Him. But as noted, for this to be possible, we must be MADE DEPENDENT upon Him. Sure. And even this work of the Spirit – to make us dependent upon God – is something for which we must depend upon God. We must literally say to Him, “Lord, do whatever it takes to bring me into this relationship with You. Do whatever it takes to make me dependent.”
You will notice that I did NOT say that in order to be MADE dependent or needy that what we need to do is follow principles or laws. No. This is about TRUTH, and it is about a spiritual relationship with God. We must be MADE SPIRITUALLY BANKRUPT in ourselves before we will be able to fully rely upon God, and fully receive what He has to give.
If you want a principle, this is a basic principle of grace. You will never embrace the grace of God until you see that it is your only hope. You and I will not be utterly dependent upon God until we are brought to the place where we are out of other options. This is simply the nature of SPIRITUAL MATURITY but it is our nature to make it difficult. Then we will see that God was our only option to begin with – and we will rejoice in that fact.
It is a miracle of God, and a work of the Holy Spirit, to bring a person to where they are not only utterly dependent upon Him, but to where they rejoice in that fact. But then again, we are not talking about religious principles to follow. We are talking about knowing God, and entering into a fellowship with Him based on Truth.
Being Made Dependent
It is God’s will for us to be dependent, and for Him to supply our need. This is the true relationship. But in order for it to happen, we have to realize our need. We also need to realize the faithfulness of God. Until we realize both we aren’t going to go to God with our needs. So God has to bring us into a knowing of this Truth.
The way He usually does it is by creating or allowing a practical need. Only if God cuts us off from our other dependencies – including our own abilities – will we begin to honestly turn to Him. God has a way of cutting us off from all other resources (We’ve been talking about the ‘separations’ that performs in our lives). The flesh usually won’t turn to Him otherwise.
GET THIS……..I have found that quite often God will NOT immediately respond and supply our need – no matter what we do. I’d never make a rule out of that, because situations are different, but quite often when we encounter a great need and turn to God, God doesn’t immediately respond. Sometimes He doesn’t respond for a long time. Indeed, there are times when the more we cry out to God, the WORSE the situation seems to become.
Why is this the case? Hasn’t God promised us? Sure. And He will keep every promise He has made. But the explanation here is what I was talking about earlier. We want a THING – we want the THING that will solve our problem, or supply our need. But God wants more – He wants a relationship with us. He is merely using our need for some THING to get us closer to Him.
I have also found that if God allows us to get into a desperate situation, that once we turn to God, we are going to get caught up into something that is much deeper than we bargained for. God could supply a need with a THING in a moment. But what He is after is an eternal relationship. He is after a relationship wherein we are dependent upon Him, and He is our provision.
It sounds ironic, if not contradictory, that the way in which God builds this relationship is by NOT immediately giving us what we need. Natural thinking would suggest otherwise – it would suggest that the way God builds faith in us, and the way in which we become dependent upon God is if He immediately supplies our need. But often it is the opposite – God builds faith by delaying, withholding, and allowing all kinds of things to make Him seem like a liar.
Why? Why does God work this way? Because faith MUST be tested. Otherwise it will remain simply a concept. To put it another way, it is only if God delays giving me the THING I need will I go on to find God Himself. Only if God withholds the THING will I enter into true relationship.
When God won’t supply my need promptly, it is because He wants to give me something eternal. I want the THING from God, but God wants relationship. Only if my faith is tested will that relationship be possible.
Think about what the Bible calls, “the trial of faith.” The words in that phrase mean exactly what they say. A trial of your faith is when your belief that God is faithful is TRIED and TESTED. Now, what is the only way in which such a belief can be tested? In only one way: You must be in a spiritual environment, and even a physical environment, that brings contradiction to God’s faithfulness. Your faith in God is only tested if everything around you, and perhaps even inside of you, is contradicting your faith.
This is always the case in any trial of faith. Your belief that God is faithful and true is assaulted and put under ridicule and challenge. And really, the only way that this is possible, is if what God has said is true is seeming NOT coming to pass – but it seems to be impossible. In this matter of provision, God has promised to provide if we continue to believe Him. The trial of faith will be when God doesn’t provide and there seems to be no way He can.
But notice the purpose of God in all of this. If I say I believe God will provide all of my need, this may not at all indicate that I am, in fact, DEPENDENT upon God. It is quite possible to believe that I should be dependent, and to give assent to the fact that God is faithful – and yet for this to all be nothing more than something I heard pastor say, or Woody say, or Holloway say. All of that is fine and good, and is a nice place to start. But none of it means that I am actually dependent upon God. For that to be the case – for me to BE dependent – God has to take my agreement to the fact that He is faithful and put me through the fire. He has to cause me to be faced with contradictions to the Truth I say I believe. Only Then will prove my real faith.
If I am in a trial of faith, God is not testing me so that He can find out whether I have faith. No. Rather, God is seeking to BUILD in me a stronger faith. But He cannot do this by giving me THINGS. He can only do it by opening the door to a greater relationship with Him. In short, the whole trial of faith is so that I can begin to fellowship with God Himself.
One of the things in a trial of faith that God will do is expose our desire for THINGS, and give us the opportunity to seek God Himself. This is one reason why He doesn’t immediately meet our needs – if He did, we would not seek God Himself.
The ways of God are eternal, even though our ways tend to be towards the temporal. We want God to give us THINGS. God wants to give us HIMSELF. We want God to speak to us and tell us what to do. God wants to reveal Himself to us. We want God to remove the difficulty. God wants the difficulty to remain so that through it we might be set free. We want God to supply our need. God wants to build into us an eternal relationship.
GOD OR THINGS
So far we are seeing that God wants fellowship and relationship with us, but that the only relationship possible with God is fellowship in the Truth. And that Truth is that we have nothing in ourselves, and God is all. Thus, the only TRUE relationship possible is one wherein I am dependent upon God for everything, and He is my provider for everything.
Unfortunately, this is not often taught in our churches. At best, we are taught to depend upon God once in awhile, usually only when we are in need. Thus, we seek God for THINGS – for material things or for what we think are SPIRITUAL THINGS. But we are seeing that dependence involves more than that. Dependence is the essence of a true relationship with God.
For example, I said that there are many Christians who seek God for THINGS. We turn to God for provision, or for some THING we want from Him. And the THING we want from God may be legitimate. We may have a real NEED – even a desperate need. But there is a real danger here; a real deception possible. It is quite possible to want THINGS from God, but to not really want God Himself. It is possible to want THINGS from God, but to have little idea of the true, eternal relationship God desires to have with us.
I used to think that in order to get from God what I wanted, (I was assuming that what I wanted was also God’s will), I used to think that to get this from God that I simply needed to do all the right things. I was taught that I needed to keep certain Bible principals, and if I did, then God was sort of obligated – by His own Word, of course – to make things come out the desired way. And of course, it is possible to dig out of the Bible all kinds of promises to supposedly support such a theory. But what I was blind to was that this was a disguised way of seeking THINGS FROM GOD – rather than God Himself.
It is so easy to fall into this subtle trap. But fortunately, God will not play along with this for very long. God is not going to help us stay in our blindness and error. He will actually begin to disturb it. For God doesn’t merely want to give us THINGS. He doesn’t want to simply supply material needs. No. God wants relationship and fellowship with us. And He will not settle for less.
God has promised to supply all of our need. Jesus said, “Seek you first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33) But anyway you want to read this verse, the, “all things being added to you,” is absolutely conditioned upon seeking first the kingdom. God will not allow it to function any other way, because it can function only in this way.
What this means is that God will NOT add to us much at all unless we are seeking first HIS RULE and HIS WILL. In other words, we must SEEK FIRST GOD HIMSELF – and if we do, then God is free to add to us everything that comes along with Him and our purpose. Or, to put it another way, if we are rightly related to God by faith – if we are dependent upon God – then OUT FROM THAT RELATIONSHIP will emerge, “all these things.”
But it is just as certain that God will never bless any prosperity and will never bless any success that is NOT the outcome of being rightly related to Himself – and this includes even any prosperity in the lives of Christian people. If I am not dependent upon God, I may prosper greatly, and I may even think it is because I am pleasing to God. But it is NOT. God is never happy with any prosperity or success unless it is the result of seeking HIM FIRST, and of being dependent upon Him.
You can serve mammon and become rich doing so – even as a professing Christian. But if you are not dependent upon God, you are OUT of God’s will. The only prosperity that God will bless is that which is the by-product of being rightly related to Himself – in other words, YOU BELONG TO GOD. Christian people are never to be living as if they do not belong to Him.
I realize that there are many who give lip-service to dependence upon God, but who really do so only as a cover-up. But not to worry. God has a way of testing our faith. If I truly believe I am dependent upon God, it will be proven one way or another. For despite all of our hypocrisy and self-deception, the Holy Spirit nevertheless has promised to lead us into all Truth. So if I’m not dependent, God will seek to make me dependent. If I am dependent, God will prove it. Either way, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to bring us into relationship with God.
Spiritual Strength
It is a fact – to the degree that we are dependent upon God we will be spiritually strong. Of course, in order to be made dependent upon God, we must be made weak in ourselves. Thus, we see that if the work of the Cross makes us weak we will depend upon God, and be made spiritually strong.
What does it mean to be weak in oneself? It means to have no righteousness of our own. It means that all the resources of the flesh are cut off. It means that we no longer are able to function and live according to our own strength and abilities. If God makes us weak we won’t be able to anyway. But it also means that we will live from above, in the strength of Christ within. This will not be a religious position we take, or a frame of mind we create. It will be real.
Notice what Paul said about himself:
And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong. (2 Cor. 12:7-10)
Most of us probably won’t have this drastic of an experience. But I would submit that if we want to go on with Christ that we are going to have to have something along this line. At some point in our life in Christ, we are going to have to enter into the sufficiency of His grace – and that is only possible if we literally experience our own weakness. You simply cannot be strong in Christ unless you are made weak. You will never truly depend upon Him unless you are made utterly weak and needy.
Paul spoke of this same principle, that of strength through weakness, elsewhere:
Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: THAT I MAY KNOW HIM, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead. (Phil 3:8-11)
Natural man knows nothing of dependency upon God. Indeed, natural man will push it away, redefine it, neglect it, or deny it. But as I have stated, if you want a REAL relationship with Christ, this is where you must come. A REAL relationship with God is that I am completely dependent on Him, do not belong to myself, am crippled by my own flesh, and can no longer live in the power of my own resources. But I find that Christ is sufficient as my life, that God meets my every need according to His will, and I can live in the power of His resurrection. This is Christianity.
So if it seems as if God is allowing you to LOSE, it is only so that you might GAIN. If you are becoming weak in yourself, it is not cause for worry or despair. For there is eternal strength in Christ. It is all unto purpose that we might be dependent upon God, and that He must be our provision.
ABIDE IN= REMAIN/STAND/ENDURE
SEEK= TO LEAD/REFERENCE POINT