The Only Thing You Need When You Can't

So Christ has truly set us free.  Now make sure that you stay free, and don't get tied up again in slavery to the law.  Galatians 5:1

I didn't. 

I wish I could say that I stayed free, but that would be a lie.

I've spent way too many years still chained to the law.

I knew that Christ had set me free from my sins by His death on the cross.  I knew I couldn't earn it or deserve it. It was a free gift.

But then something happened. 

In in all my rejoicing over my freedom, all I wanted was to live for this God who had saved me.  I wanted to thank Him, praise Him and what gift could I give?

And then I came up with an idea.  This was my first mistake.

If I could just be perfect, then my life would really give Him glory.

So I set about to accomplish this task.

Making myself perfect for God, because I wanted to be holy, and well isn't that what you do?  Aren't we supposed to be holy like Him?

I would tell you of all the rules I tried to keep and failed to.

I would tell you of all the good I tried to do and messed up.

I would tell you of how hard I pushed myself over and over again to get this thing of the Christian life right, only to realize I was all wrong.

But all that stuff, it's meaningless.

He let me try.  Over and over again, in His beautiful grace, He let me exhaust myself until in absolute futility I was finally ready to cry out,

"I can't do it!"

And He said, "You can't?  Yes, I know.  That is why you need Me.  That is why I came for you.  You can't and you never will be able to.  This thing of walking with Me, of living for Me, it's not a work, it's rest.  Resting in My perfect work on the cross.  The work, it's already done, I've already done it.  Your work is just to believe."

To believe in His grace and goodness.

To believe that His work was enough to cover all my sins, past, present, and future.

To believe that He is strong enough to carry me, because I can't do it.

The disciples asked Jesus the same question, "what do we do to work the works of God?"

And His answer?  Just Believe. 

The work of the Believer is to believe.

He had to prove to me over and over that apart from Him, I can do nothing.  

Nothing.


In fact, I can't even love Him without Him first loving me.

I can't seek Him without Him first seeking me.

I can't love what He loves without Him loving those things through me.

I can't love to read His Word without Him helping me to love it daily.

I can't.

Believe me, I have tried.

There is a lot you can accomplish with sheer will power but you'll never get it exactly right.

I know, I have run many a mile that way.

And it will be hard, painful, difficult, and frustrating misery.

We were never meant to live the Christian life in our own strength.

We were never meant to obey God's law by sheer will power, by working harder, by trying more.

We can't do it, ever.

But Jesus said, "If you love me, you will obey my commandments."

Yes, He said you will, not try to.

You see, He obeyed them perfectly in our place.   

We can't do it.

And the harder we try to, the more we fail.

Because if we are the one trying, then we deserve some of the glory, and God will never share His glory with another.

It is only when we come to the end of our strength and cry out, "Lord, forgive me!  I can't!"

Then He does.

He did it all, He does it all.

It is only by recognizing how totally unable we are to do anything for Him, how completely broken, sinful and needy we really are, that we can finally receive the grace He died to give us.

And when we get to that place of I can't, then He does it all.

And we find ourselves living more and more in accordance with His will, because He is living out His life through our lives. Transforming us into His image.

What we could never do, He does.

And we stand back and marvel at how amazing, how beautiful, how perfect He is.

He gets all the glory.

For way too long I've been a glory thief.

I worked and worked at this thing of the Christian life, thinking it was my job to do it well.

When all along, it was my job to realize I can't do it well, and I never will unless He does it in me.

And this grace, it is amazing.

And the more I get this grace, see it's beauty, it does one thing.

Make me fall in love with this God all over again.

And seeing the gift of His love poured out to me, my heart pours it right back to Him.

Because I am just an empty jar, empty to be filled with Him.

And when I realize my emptiness and cry out for His filling, He overflows my cup.

And this Love, it pours, running over into this hurting world.

He is the source of all Love, I have nothing, I 'm just the empty jar, but as I trust Him to fill it, He does.

And this fullness running over, I leak Joy.

You can't work up Joy or Love by trying harder.


It is impossible.

You might pop out some plastic fruit, but it will never fill a belly. 

And I want to be full.

Full of Him. 

This meditation on His grace, it causes my love for Him to overflow, my joy to never cease abounding.

Because He does it in me.

He produces the Love, He produces the Joy.

It is the natural fruit of a life sucking sap from the vine of His Life, His grace.

So I rejoice in my "I can't" because it is the only way into His Life.

His fullest Life.

And in His Life, there is only

I Can.