Daily Devotions for Difficult Days [54] Dependence on God

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Our Sunday devotionals are written by Assistant Pastor Mike Loveridge

Dependence on God

The song for this week is ‘Lord, I Need You’ by Matt Maher. You can listen to the song here. Like previous weeks, I suggest you listen to the song, dwell on the words and then read through my brief comments. I hope this song blesses you as it has me.

Lord, I come, I confess
Bowing here I find my rest
Without You I fall apart
You're the One that guides my heart

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

Where sin runs deep Your grace is more
Where grace is found is where You are
Where You are, Lord, I am free
Holiness is Christ in me

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

So teach my song to rise to You
When temptation comes my way
When I cannot stand I'll fall on You
Jesus, You're my hope and stay

Lord, I need You, oh, I need You
Every hour I need You
My one defence, my righteousness
Oh God, how I need You

 Matt Maher

 From start to finish, this song speaks to us of the greatest need of all humanity – God. We need God. Full stop. We need God whether we know and trust him or not.  We need God whether we are weak or strong. We need God whether we are young, old, arrogant, fearful, happy, grieving, successful or at rock bottom. There is no human being alive who can say they have enough of God. We need God for our rest, guidance, forgiveness, freedom, strength, hope. The song says we need God ever hour, but the reality is we need God every minute and second of every day of our lives!

Through Christ we have been justified

Ephesians 2:4-5 tells us “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved”. Let’s break that down. Apart from God, we are lost and dead in our sin. But God dealt with that through the death of Jesus upon the cross. If you are a Christian you are ‘alive with Christ’. But you did not make yourself right with God. It is by God’s grace that you have been saved. If we trust in Jesus, we are saved by his righteousness. In the words of the song, Jesus is our righteousness. Or to use a nice long word, Jesus has achieved our justification. God is a just God and could not let sin go unpunished, Jesus took the punishment that should have been ours and in doing so He has made us right with God again. We are justified through faith in Jesus.

Through Christ we are being sanctified

If Jesus has dealt with our sin, why do we still need him?  The answer is for our sanctification. Sanctification is the process through which we are made more like Jesus and our lives become more holy and less sinful.  Living the Christian life relies on our full dependence on the grace of God which we received through Jesus as the Holy Spirit works in us.

In John 15:5 Jesus says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing”. These are strong words. Apart from Jesus, we can do nothing! Nothing of any spiritual, eternal significance is possible apart from abiding in Jesus. This is not optional. Christians must abide in Jesus.

To abide means to live with. We should live our lives with Jesus as the front and centre.

A hunger for God

The less you feel your need for God, the less you will abide in him. It’s like feeling hungry. If you’re not hungry then you don’t eat. And just like food, if we go without God for long enough there can be serious consequences.  Look at what John goes on to say next 15:6 - “If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned”. Wow, what a sobering verse. If we do not acknowledge our daily need for Jesus and cling to him we will dry up and die. We are weak and feeble and can do nothing on our own. Do not fear we have a faithful God who sustains us and is at work in us, but we need to abide in Jesus daily.

Christians all need to be hungry for more of Jesus. And that’s why I love this song. It’s really more of a prayer than a song. As you sing it, you are crying out to God, asking him to help you to make more room for him in your life, asking him to help you to realise how completely dependent you are on him. It reminds us of our own weakness and failures and, more importantly, focuses us on our strong, awesome, powerful God who faithfully sustains, provides and cares for us. In singing this, we are echoing the great words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:10: “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

A warning

We need to ask God to help us to abide more fully in him through giving us a renewed sense of our need for Him. But be careful! Just as snacking on junk food stops you getting hungry for your main meals, we can spiritually ‘snack’ on worldly junk so that we aren’t hungry for the good ‘food’ of Jesus. If we want to grow in our need for God we need to ask for his help in pruning the fruitless areas of our life, the spiritual junk food of the world. When we were going through the Fruit of the Spirits series, Roy reminded us of this. God is our gardener and sometimes he must lovingly prune us through trials, so that we may be more fruitful. It may not feel good at the time but it is for our own good. We must allow God to cut off the sin which so easily entangles us (as Paul put it) if we want to bear fruit for his kingdom.

Each of us will abide in the things we feel we need the most. Ask God to show you were you are abiding. Ask God to prune away any fruitless parts of your life. Ask God for a greater awareness of your need of him.

Prayer for today:

 Loving heavenly Father,

We come before you now and thank you for Jesus. Thank you that he died in my place and that through him I am made right with you. May I never lose the wonder of the gospel.

Father I acknowledge my need for you. I am weak and feeble without you. I need you every second of every minute of every day. May I depend on you more and more each day and may I abide fully in you. I ask that you prune any fruitlessness from my life for your glory.

I ask all this in Jesus name,

Amen.