DEPENDENT
BREAD
22 This
righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.
There is no difference, 23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by
his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Romans 3:22-24 (NIV)
23 For
the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus
our Lord. Romans 6:23 (NIV)
8 For it
is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves,
it is the gift of God-- 9 not by
works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians
2:8-10 (NIV)
17 Therefore,
if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has
come! 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NIV)
20 I have
been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The
life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20
(NIV)
6 For we
know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be
done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin-- 7 because anyone who has died
has been freed from sin. Romans 6:6-7
(NIV)
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me
and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is
thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and
burned.” John 15:5-6 (NIV)
4 The
word of the Lord came to me,
saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were
born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” 6 “Ah, Sovereign Lord,”
I said, “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child.” 7 But the Lord said to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only
a child.’ You must go to everyone I send you to and say whatever I command you.
8 Do not
be afraid of them, for I am with you and will rescue you,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 1:4-8 (NIV)
13 For
you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you because I am
fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full
well. 15 My
frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was
woven together in the depths of the earth, 16 your eyes saw my unformed
body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them
came to be. Psalms 139:13-16 (NIV)
25 “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry
about the rest?” Luke 12:25-26
(NIV)
BUTTER
“The Gospel is a message about God. It
tells us who he is, what his character is, what his standards are and what he
requires of us, his creatures. It tells us that we owe our very existence to
him…the gospel starts by teaching us that we, as creatures, are absolutely
dependent on God, and that he as Creator, has an absolute claim on us. The gospel is a message about sin. It tells us how we have fallen short of God’s
standard; how we have become guilty, filthy and helpless in sin, and now stand
under the wrath of God…the gospel is a message about Christ. Christ is the Son of God incarnate; Christ is
the Lamb of God, who died for sin; Christ is the risen Lord; Christ is the
perfect Savior…The gospel is a summons to faith and repentance. All who hear
the gospel are summoned by God to repent and believe”. J.I.
Packer
“Anxiety comes from strain, and strain is caused by too
complete a dependence on ourselves.” Thomas
Merton
“The more we depend on God, the more dependable we find He
is.”
Cliff Richard
“The work of a
true convert is not done. He (and she) finds a great work to do and great wants
to be supplied. He (and she) still sees himself/herself to be a poor, empty,
helpless creature who still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He/she well knows that without God he/she can
do nothing. After a true conversion, the soul is increasingly aware of its own
impotence and emptiness. It is still aware of its universal dependence on God
for everything. A true convert is aware that his grace is very imperfect and
that he/she is very far from having all that he/she desires. Through conversion, new desires are produced
in him/her that he/she never had before…So he/she still has plenty of business
at the throne of grace: if fact, his/her business there increases rather than
diminishes.” Jonathan
Edwards
“We need to keep
reminding ourselves that without the Lord we can do nothing. It needs to become
a habit of mind with each of us to tell the Lord as we tackle each task, ‘I
can’t do this without your help, please help me’, and then to expect to be helped
because we have admitted our helplessness, given up self-reliance and are now
looking to Him.” J. I. Packer
“Now when a man has learned through the
commandments to recognize his helplessness and is distressed about how he might
satisfy the law…and then being truly humbled and reduced to nothing in his own
eyes, he finds in himself nothing whereby he may be justified and saved. Here the second part of Scripture comes to
our aid, namely, the promises of God which declare the glory of God, saying,
‘If you wish to fulfill the law….come, believe in Christ in whom grace,
righteousness, peace, liberty, and all things are promised to you. If you believe you shall have all things; if
you do not believe, you shall lack all things’.” Martin
Luther
“We are the workmanship of
God. He wants to regenerate us through our relationship with Jesus in the
supernatural community of the Church. Then, He gives us the spiritual gifts and
tools we’ll need to do the good works that he’s already prepared for us to do.” Chip Ingram
“When you give up your illusions of control or helplessness and accept
your need for God, all that God has opens to you.”
Marjorie Thompson
“A
farmer is helpless to grow grain; all he can do is provide the right conditions
for the growing of grain. He cultivates
the ground, he plants the seed, he waters the plants, and then the natural
forces of the earth take over and up comes the grain. This is the way it is with the Spiritual
Disciplines – they are a way of sowing to the Spirit. The Disciplines are God’s way of getting us
into the ground; they put us where He can work within us and transform us. By themselves the Spiritual Disciplines can
do nothing; they can only get us to the place where something can be done. They are God’s means of grace. The inner righteousness we seek is not
something that is poured on our heads.
God has ordained the Disciplines of the spiritual life as the means by
which we place ourselves where He can bless us.” Richard J. Foster
“Let us work as if success depended upon ourselves alone, but with heartfelt
conviction that we are doing nothing, and God everything.” St. Ignatius Loyola
“On Him
then reckon, to Him look, on Him depend:
and be assured that if you walk with Him, look to Him and expect help
from Him, He will never fail you. An
older brother, who has known the Lord for forty-four years, who writes this,
says for your encouragement that He has never failed him. In the greatest difficulties, in the heaviest
trials, in the deepest poverty and necessities, He has never failed me; but
because I was enabled by His grace to trust in Him, He has always appeared for
my help. I delight in speaking well of
His Name.” George Mueller
HEART
SAVOR
· I am dependent on God for my
salvation and sanctification.
· God is always dependable –
always. We can trust Him with our lives.
·
Anxiety rises when I seek to do things in my own strength rather
than in the strength of the Holy Spirit Who dwells within me as a believer in
Jesus.
