LifeLink Devotional
Wednesday, August 5, 2020
“I can’t!”
I wonder how many times we have said that? As children we said it a lot, usually after we were asked to do something. We said it mostly because we didn’t want to, not because we couldn’t. We said it because it interrupted our plans. We said it because we were afraid. We said it because we were stubborn.
There are times in our lives when we honestly have to say, “I can’t.” Two specific times come to my mind as I read the words of Jesus in John 5.
- “I can’t save myself from my sin.”
- “I can’t do anything of real value on my own.”
When Jesus was speaking with the religious leaders of His day, He made this statement:
“I can do nothing on my own.” John 5:30
I remember a sermon my dad preached when I was a boy. It was entitled “Seven Things God Can’t Do.” As I have thought about it, the points of the sermon may have been better understood if the word won’t had been used instead of can’t. God won’t send a saved person into hell. God won’t send an unsaved sinner into heaven. God won’t forgive sin based on our good works. Etc., Etc.
But here Jesus tells us that He can’t do anything of value on His own. In context, Jesus says that He will never grant life to anyone nor will He ever judge anyone for their sin based on His own understanding or His own opinion. He always, and that means ALWAYS, grants life and judges sin in cooperation with the Father and in full agreement with God’s Divine nature.
Before we allow ourselves to get overly theological here, let me ask one question for us to ponder today.
“Is the forgiveness I grant to others, or the judgments I make about others, based on my opinion, my feeling, my convenience, or for my benefit, or is it based on the Divine nature of God at work in me through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit?”
Let’s chew on that for a while, and see if we can reach a point of spiritual understanding that allows us to be able to say, “I can do nothing on my own.”
Pastor John
LifeLink 