WE CAN DO NOTHING

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“I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)

In John 15:5, Jesus says, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” So we really are paralyzed. Without Christ, we are capable of no good. As Paul says in Romans 7:18, “Nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” But according to John 15:5, God intends for us to do something good — namely, bear fruit. So as our strong and reliable friend — “I have called you friends” (John 15:15) — he promises to do for us what we can’t do for ourselves. How then do we glorify him? Jesus gives the answer in John 15:7: “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We pray! We ask God to do for us through Christ what we can’t do for ourselves — bear fruit. Verse 8 gives the result: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.”

So how is God glorified by prayer? Prayer is the open admission that without Christ we can do nothing. And prayer is the turning away from ourselves to God in the confidence that he will provide the help we need.

MAN'S RESPONSIBILITY

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“For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Rom 11:36).

Side by side with the immutability and invincibility of God’s decrees, Scripture plainly teaches that man is a responsible creature and answerable for his actions. And if our thoughts are formed from God’s Word the maintenance of the one will not lead to the denial of the other. Real prayer is indited [dictated] by the Spirit, yet it is also  the cry of a human heart. The Scriptures are the inspired Word of God, yet they were written by men who were something more than machines in the hand of the Spirit. Christ is both God and man. He is Omniscient, yet “increased in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). He was Almighty, yet was “crucified through weakness” (II Cor 13:4). He was the Prince of life, yet He died. High mysteries are these, yet faith receives them unquestioningly. To deny the divine decrees would be to predicate a world and all its concerns regulated by UN-designed chance or blind fate. How thankful should we be that everything is determined by infinite wisdom and goodness! What praise and gratitude are due unto God for His divine decrees. It is because of them that “we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom 8:28).

MY COUNSEL SHALL STAND

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“My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Is. 46:10)
The properties of divine decrees are eternal. The decrees of God are wise. “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” (Rom 11:33). “O LORD, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all” (104:24).

They they are free. “Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being His counselor hath taught Him? With whom took He counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of judgment, and taught Him knowledge, and shewed to Him the way of understanding?” (Isa 40:13-14). God was alone when He made His decrees, and His determinations were influenced by no external cause. He was free to decree or not to decree, and to decree one thing and not another. This liberty we must ascribe to Him who is Supreme, Independent, and Sovereign in all His doings.

They are absolute and unconditional. The execution of them is not suspended upon any condition which may, or may not be, performed. In every instance where God has decreed an end, He has also decreed every means to that end. “My counsel shall stand, and I will do all My pleasure” (Isa 46:10) but that could not be, if His counsel depended upon a condition which might not be performed. But God “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11).

THE DECREES OF GOD

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“This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” Acts 2:23 NIV
The decree of God is His purpose or determination with respect to future things. The Scriptures make mention of the decrees of God in many passages, and under a variety of terms. The word “decree” is found in Psalm 2:7. In Ephesians 3:11 we read of His “eternal purpose.” In Acts 2:23 of His “determinate counsel and foreknowledge.” In Ephesians 1:9 of the mystery of His “will.” In Romans 8:29 that He also did “predestinate.” In Ephesians 1:9 of His “good pleasure.”
God’s decrees are called His “counsel” to signify they are consummately wise. They are called God’s “will” to show He was under no control, but acted according to His own pleasure. The decrees of God relate to all future things without exception: whatever is done in time was foreordained before time began. God’s purpose was concerned with everything.
God’s decree is as comprehensive as His government, extending to all creatures and all events. It was concerned about our life and death; about our state in time, and our state in eternity.

GOD'S REVELATION

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“God is Spirit” (John 4:24)

Such a God cannot be found out by searching. He can be known only as He is revealed to the heart by the Holy Spirit through the Word. The so-called argument from design by well-meaning “Apologists” has, we believe, done much more harm than good, for it has attempted to bring down the great God to the level of finite comprehension, and thereby has lost sight of His solitary excellence.

The God of Scripture can only be known by those to whom He makes Himself known . Nor is God known by the intellect. “God is Spirit” (John 4:24), and therefore can only be known spiritually. But fallen man is not spiritual; he is carnal. He is dead to all that is spiritual. Unless he is born again, supernaturally brought from death unto life, miraculously translated out of darkness into light, he cannot even see the things of God (John 3:3), still less apprehend them (I Cor 2:14). The Holy Spirit has to shine in our hearts (not intellects) in order to give us “the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (II Cor 4:6). And even that spiritual knowledge is but fragmentary. The regenerated soul has to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus (II Peter 3:18).

The principal prayer and aim of Christians should be that we “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col 1:10).

GOD'S SOVEREIGN WILL

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He “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11).

God was under no constraint, no obligation, no necessity to create. That He chose to do so was purely a sovereign act on His part, caused by nothing outside Himself, determined by nothing but His own mere good pleasure; for He “worketh all things after the counsel of His own will” (Eph 1:11). That He did create was simply for His manifestative glory. God so pleased He might have continued alone for all eternity, without making known His glory unto creatures. Whether He should do so or not was determined solely by His own will. He was perfectly blessed in Himself before the first creature was called into being. How vastly different is the God of Scripture from the “god” of the average pulpit!

He is solitary in His majesty, unique in His excellency, peerless in His perfections. He sustains all, but is Himself independent of all. He gives to all, but is enriched by none.

SOLITARINESS OF GOD… BEFORE ALL ELSE

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“Who is like unto Thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” (Exo 15:11).

God is solitary in His excellency. “In the beginning God” (Gen 1:1). There was a time, if “time” it could be called, when God, in the unity of His nature (though subsisting equally in three divine persons), dwelt all alone. “In the beginning God.”

There was no heaven, where His glory is now particularly manifested. There was no earth to engage His attention. There were no angels to hymn His praises; no universe to be upheld by the word of His power. There was nothing, no one, but God; and that, not for a day, a year, or an age, but “from everlasting.”

During eternity past, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied; in need of nothing. Had a universe, had angels, had human beings been necessary to Him in any way, they also had been called into existence from all eternity. The creating of them when He did, added nothing to God essentially. He changes not (Mal 3:6), therefore His essential glory can be neither augmented nor diminished.

KNOWING GOD

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“ACQUAINT NOW THYSELF WITH HIM, AND BE AT PEACE: thereby good shall come unto thee” (Job 22:21). “Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches: But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth Me, that I am the LORD” (Jer 9:23,24).
A spiritual and saving knowledge of God is the greatest need of every human creature. The foundation of all true knowledge of God must be a clear mental apprehension of His perfections as revealed in Holy Scripture. An unknown God can neither be trusted, served, nor worshipped.
Something more than a theoretical knowledge of God is needed by us. God is only truly known in the soul as we yield ourselves to Him, submit to His authority, and regulate all the details of our lives by His holy precepts and commandments. “Then shall we know, if we follow on [in the path of obedience] to know the LORD” (Hosea 6:3). “If any man will do His will, he shall know” (John 7:17). “The people that do know their God shall be strong” (Dan 11:32). – A.W. Pink
Do you know the living and true God?

THE ALL SATISFYING OBJECT

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Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. (Psalm 37:4)

The quest for pleasure is not even optional, but commanded (in the Psalms): “Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4). The psalmists sought to do just this: “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1–2). “My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).

The motif of thirsting has its satisfying counterpart when the psalmist says that men “drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; and You give them to drink of the river of Your delights” (Psalm 36:8, NASB). I found that the goodness of God, the very foundation of worship, is not a thing you pay your respects to out of some kind of disinterested reverence. No, it is something to be enjoyed: “Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good!” (Psalm 34:8).

“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103). As C. S. Lewis says, God in the Psalms is the “all-satisfying Object.” His people adore him unashamedly for the “exceeding joy” they find in him (Psalm 43:4). He is the source of complete and unending pleasure: “In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

Questions to ponder on……Am I delighting in Him? Is my soul panting and thirsting after Him? Is my flesh fainting for Him? Am I enjoying Him? Is His word sweet to my taste?

THE MOST LIBERATING DISCOVERY

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“Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord.” (Philippians 3:1)

No one had ever taught me that God is glorified by our joy in him. That joy in God is the very thing that makes praise an honor to God, and not hypocrisy. But Jonathan Edwards said it so clearly and powerfully: God glorifies Himself toward the creatures also in two ways: 1. By appearing to . . . their understanding. 2. In communicating Himself to their hearts, and in their rejoicing and delighting in, and enjoying, the manifestations which He makes of Himself. . . . God is glorified not only by His glory’s being seen, but by its being rejoiced in. When those that see it delight in it, God is more glorified than if they only see it. . . . He that testifies his idea of God’s glory [doesn’t] glorify God so much as he that testifies also his approbation of it and his delight in it. This was a stunning discovery for me. I must pursue joy in God if I am to glorify him as the most surpassing valuable Reality in the universe. Joy is not a mere option alongside worship. It is an essential component of worship.

We have a name for those who try to praise when they have no pleasure in the object. We call them hypocrites. This fact — that praise means consummate pleasure and that the highest end of man is to drink deeply of this pleasure — was perhaps the most liberating discovery I ever made. (Piper)