Philippians 3:13-14
13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
“After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just this power of always trying again.” – C. S. Lewis
No one is beyond the need of forgiveness. Having said that, we should not stop striving to please the Lord in everything we do and who we are. The beauty of serving Christ is, He is willing to go to the lowest depths of our souls to pick us up, because He knows that we are trying.
Who Hindered You
Galatians 3:1-4
3 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? 4 Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?
I don’t know what happens but, somewhere between getting saved and moving on in Christ…we get it in our heads that our salvation is TOTALLY up to us…remember, salvation is a MIRACLE…it will never be sustained by human effort alone…we need Jesus with us all the time.
Too many are depending on their faith to make it…when we should really be depending on the mercy and favor of God. Always remembering that it was Jesus who saved us in the first place. You don’t become more holy by serving God harder!
Luke 10:41-42
41 And Jesus answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. 42 But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.”
The closer you are to Jesus, the holier you become…depending on Him…so it would do you good to answer the first question: who bewitched you?
In other words, to be bewitched means, you simply gave yourself to a conversation that worked against the things of God – a spell was cast upon you, either by someone else, or by your own insecurities.
Have you talked yourself into giving up on God? Who bewitched you?
Effort
Psalm 124
124 “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,”
Let Israel now say—
2 “If it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
When men rose up against us,
3 Then they would have swallowed us alive,
When their wrath was kindled against us;
4 Then the waters would have overwhelmed us,
The stream would have gone over our soul;
5 Then the swollen waters
Would have gone over our soul.”
6 Blessed be the Lord,
Who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
7 Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers;
The snare is broken, and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
Who made heaven and earth.
Every step of the way, the Lord is right there with us, but that doesn’t exempt us from putting in effort! Ray Lewis, former defensive player and hall of famer said, ‘Effort is between you and you…no one can judge effort.’
Are you putting in effort to serve the Living God? God focuses on redemption by first helping us develop the desire to TRY.
John 5:5-9
5 Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity for 38 years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?”
7 The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.”
8 Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” 9 And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked.
And that day was the Sabbath.
The key to this scripture is when the man said, ‘while I am coming…’ He was willing to put in an effort, even though the physical odds were stacked against him, it didn’t stop him from trying – you shouldn’t stop either.
Close:
James 4:6
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:
“God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”
Humility does remind us of our limitations, but it also confirms the Lord’s limitlessness.
We should grow more dependent on God, not less.
We fall down, but we get up – for a saint is just a sinner who fell down; and got up…