Live Dead Joy: 30 Days of Living and Dying with JesusSample

“Universal Folly”

There are three spirits that plague humanity. These are the spirits of I know, I can, and I will.  Somehow we have swallowed the lies that we know better than God does, we can do things in our own strength, and what we want is most important. We think we understand what needs to be done, and we think we have the resources to force our will on our reality.

Joseph understood that “interpretations belong to God” (Gen. 40:8). He said, “It is not in me [to interpret]; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace” (41:16). The sooner we come to terms with our complete inability to know or solve or achieve or produce in our own strength, the happier and safer we will be. It is the fool who says, by self-sustained thinking and action, that there is no God (Ps. 14:1). The unflinching testimony of Scripture points out that you and I are that fool. No one does good . . . all have turned aside. . . together all err . . . no one fully relies on the Lord—no, not anyone.

We castigate atheists for their theoretical disavowal of the Creator but functionally live just like them. When we depend on our own wisdom, our own strength, and our own willpower (and all of us repeatedly do), we are the fools who say with our lives, “There is no God!”

It does not help that people love to worship people. A person would much rather glorify himself or another person than the Lord of hosts. Paul and Barnabas were used by God to give an answer of peace to a cripple. His healing made the mob delirious, and Paul and Barnabas had to tear their clothes and cry out in order to avoid unmerited praise. They later reported correctly “all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27, italics added). We are the tools—God uses us or not as He wills.

Let us not be Christian fools who live as if there were no God. Let us with Joseph, Paul, and Barnabas recognize that it is not in us to help or to save. What is in us is limited and downright embarrassing; it only leads to death and sorrow. What is in God is beautiful and life-giving. God chooses to act with us—God gives the answers of peace.

Pray for the Unreached:

Ansari Muslims of Pakistan

4,174,000

0.0% Evangelical

Pray that the Ansari would feel and know the burden of sin and would come to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation (Matthew 11:28-30).