Not my own strength

As a human, especially one that grew up in the United States is very easy to try to rely on myself. For many years in my Christian journey I have tried to do the right things by my own strength. Isn't this something that we all have tried and have failed at. I will admit it, I have failed while relying on myself and my strength to become more like Jesus. The other day while spending time with God through prayer and reading of the Bible I came across this passage and it struck me and has stuck with me so I decided that I would share it. It comes from Jude.

24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

Neither you nor I can keep ourselves from doing what is wrong. However it does not end there. Isn't that the joy of Christianity that it doesn't end at what we can not do. We can not save ourselves and right our relationship with God because of our sins. There is nothing we do can. However the story does not end there. Jesus lived a perfect life, died in our places and rose from the dead conquering sin. Our sin no longer has power over us if we believe that Jesus is God and died in our place for our sins.
Now may seem like a huge rabbit trail off from what it started as however I hope you will see the connection soon. In my life I have accepted the fact for a long time that I can not save myself from my sin and can not on my own restore my relationship with God. That being said, on the other hand I have seemed to think that after I was saved and put into the right with God that I could make myself into the person that He wanted me to be. I thought that by trying to live a certain way that I could have life to the fullest and while that is partly true, I failed to realize that I can not do it on my own. I need to rely fully on God. Jesus is the one who can keep me from stumbling and living a life outside of the one that leads to life to the fullest. I was foolish for believing the lie that I could accomplish it on my own. So often I have moved forward under my own power and not my the power of the Holy Spirit and wonder why nothing happens. Before I move I need to first pray and rely on God and the guiding of his Spirit. Only then can I live life to the fullest. So I ask you who are you relying on? Yourself or the power of God and his Spirit. Let me tell you from experience life to the fullest does not happen by relying on yourself but on Jesus. May you experience this freedom from doing life on your own and learning to rely on Jesus for everything and may the Holy Spirit guide our lives and may the world know him through that.

Learning to follow him more each day,
MJV

Yeah

The past couple of months have been a time of great reflection. During this time I have done a lot of reading of Biblical scholars. One of the people I have been reading has been N.T. Wright. He is one of the best Biblical scholars that I have ever read. His views on most topics seem to be in line with what the Bible has to say. His views have explained a lot of New Testament that used to be fuzzy, even for a Bible student. The teachings of his have helped me grow on this journey of Christianity. I have heard some good sermons that have convicted me very greatly. The conviction has not been in a bad way but in a positive way that has allowed me to look at my life and start to change it. During this time I have seen Christianity that was more of a show and then Christianity that is stripped down and raw. These people have gone back to the basic, to the truth of the Bible and are pursuing it has hard as they can. My personal times with God have been to say the least amazing. Some hard, some joyous, others just hard to explain to anybody. However they have been growing times, true blessings in my life. Most of all it is great to have a wife who is growing, maturing, deepening her faith and going on this crazy journey of life with me.

Learning to follow Jesus who is Lord more and more...
Mike