YOU’VE
REALLY GOT TO WANT IT
As we continue to think our way into this subject of experiencing effective union with Jesus in Christian ministry I’m reminded of a further insight gained from reading John Calvin recently. In the opening chapters of his Institutes of the Christian Religion Calvin insists that we will never really turn to God until we see how much we need him.[1]
He mentions this in the context of writing about the nature of wisdom. True wisdom, he argues, is to be found in knowing God and knowing ourselves. Unless we appreciate who God is – and in particular, who he is to us (the author and source of all life, wisdom, power and goodness) – and unless we know ourselves as we truly are (not only totally dependent but pervasively corrupted), then we will never know how to act properly (wisdom).
Calvin puts it this way: “Until men recognize that they owe everything to God, that they are nourished by his fatherly care, that he is the Author of their every good, that they should seek nothing beyond him – they will never yield him willing service. Nay, unless they establish their complete happiness in him, they will never give themselves truly and sincerely to him.”[2]
This applies directly to this matter of finding our life in Christ that we have been talking about in recent weeks. Until we see how completely sufficient he is and how dependent we are upon him, we will never look to him as we should.
There are many things that keep us from seeing how reliant we are upon the Lord Jesus Christ – especially in the matter of bearing fruit for him in this world. One is a general loss of belief in the pervasive presence of God in his world. Today people seldom think about (and still less believe) that everything that exists does so only through the sustaining word of God (Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:3). We think things exist in and of themselves. The notion of a comprehensive divine providence is not part of our popular way of looking at life. Correspondingly, we have lost any belief in the fact that “we live and move and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28).
Another thing that affects our reliance upon Christ is general rejection of the idea that people are inherently fallen and corrupted beings – that their minds are blinded by Satan and their hearts go astray from the womb (2 Corinthians 4:4; Psalm 51:5).We live in a culture that encourages us to think positively about ourselves and to put confidence in what humankind can do. It vehemently opposes the idea that we have a disposition to sin – the concept of “total depravity” certainly doesn’t feature in our schools, the sociology departments of our universities, or in our social welfare system. Nor, sadly, is it heard from many Christian pulpits today. Popular Christianity is about feeling good and the actualization of self. The doctrine of original sin is all but banished from our religious life. It is viewed as a relic of a repressive earlier expression of the faith that deserves to be buried forever.
Soaked daily in such an atmosphere it’s difficult for Christians not to adopt an attitude of basic self-competence. “You can do anything that you put your mind to,” we are told, and to some degree, we believe it. The thought that we can’t get off base one by ourselves never occurs to us.
So at best we develop an attitude of partial dependence upon Jesus. Most Christians will admit that there are many things that they cannot do by themselves. Especially in the area of ministry, they will acknowledge that they need the Holy Spirit to make their service for Christ effective. But in doing so, they rarely see how totally dependent they are upon him. It’s more a matter of getting support from the Lord at critical moments – of getting a “top-up” of spiritual power – than it is about drawing everything from him. A true knowledge of just how helpless we are is rare today.
And that hinders our dependence upon Jesus. Calvin was right. We will never look to Christ for everything until we are convinced that in ourselves we possess nothing. That’s true in the spiritual realm of course; but it’s also true in the physical and material domains as well. We never take a breath, nor have a thought enter our minds, apart from him. Still less can we hope to have a godly desire or be the instrument of spiritual power unless it comes from Jesus. It is only as we know and believe this deeply in our hearts that we will constantly abide in him. You’ve really got to want what Jesus has to give in order to live your life in him.