Dependence on God
“What Satan put into the heads of our remote ancestors was the idea that they could ‘be like gods’ - could set up on their own as if they had created themselves - be their own masters - invent some sort of happiness for themselves outside God, apart from God. And out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
~ C. S. Lewis
“(Many) come to believe deep in (their) hearts that needing anyone for anything is a sort of weakness, a handicap.
…Jesus knew nothing of that. The Man who never flinched to take on hypocrites and get in their face, the One who drove ‘a hundred men wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,’ the Master of wind and sea, lived in a desperate dependence on His Father. ‘I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing’; ‘I live by the power of the living Father who sent me’; ‘The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.’ This isn’t a source of embarrassment to Christ; quite the opposite. He brags about his relationship with his Father. He’s happy to tell anyone who will listen, ‘The Father and I are one’ (John 5:19; 6:57; 14:10; 10:30 NLT).”
~John Eldredge
The reason why it can never succeed is this. God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
~ C. S. Lewis
“(Many) come to believe deep in (their) hearts that needing anyone for anything is a sort of weakness, a handicap.
…Jesus knew nothing of that. The Man who never flinched to take on hypocrites and get in their face, the One who drove ‘a hundred men wi’ a bundle o’ cords swung free,’ the Master of wind and sea, lived in a desperate dependence on His Father. ‘I assure you, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing’; ‘I live by the power of the living Father who sent me’; ‘The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me.’ This isn’t a source of embarrassment to Christ; quite the opposite. He brags about his relationship with his Father. He’s happy to tell anyone who will listen, ‘The Father and I are one’ (John 5:19; 6:57; 14:10; 10:30 NLT).”
~John Eldredge
Comments