PLUGGING INTO OUR LORD

Once my parents had learned that I had become a believer in Jesus, they were horrified and insisted that I speak to one of our family members—a rabbi. One of the things he said stuck with me:

• You see that electric socket? Once you plug in, you’ve got all the power you need. Judaism is the same way. Once you learn how to plug into God, you’ve got everything you need.

The Bible teaches us the same thing. We plug into God by trusting in His Son Jesus by believing. However, this also entails de-trusting in everything else we had believed in before, especially in ourselves:

For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3)

To place our confidence in ourselves is to resist placing our confidence completely in our Lord:

• Thus says the Lord: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the Lord. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

Trusting in ourselves is to obsess on ourselves. It’s a difficult obsession to break. It has deep roots infesting the depths of our thought-life like a consuming cancer.

How does this cancer seek to consume us? It has many strategies:

• Comparing ourselves with others.
• Deprecating others in order to magnify ourselves.
• Jealousy and resentment of those who have what we want.
• Focusing upon ourselves rather than on our only hope— our Savior.

What is the answer? Repenting of our self-focus and re-trusting in God. For me, the best way to do this is to meditate upon God’s love for me:

“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. (Colossians 2:9-10)

We are complete in Him, wealthy and blessed beyond anything we can imagine. Knowing this leaves no room for jealousy to metastasize. Therefore, Paul had prayed that we would:

• …know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.(Ephesians 3:19)

To have the “fullness of God” requires us to know His love for us, as Christ had prayed:

• “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Jesus continues to reveal to us the love of the Father so that this love would also be in us.

I still fall pray to worry and anxiety, but now I know to whom to flee to find relief:

• “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

Knowing He loves me, I gladly take His yoke upon myself. I have now learned to start and finish my day by rehearsing His promises of His love for me.