For eBooks click here

God knows how strong and driving your need is—He designed it that way. You can be confident that by turning and drawing near to God He can and will meet that need!

Want a devotional? Click here to send me your email address.

It is Right to Depend on God!

It is not selfish to be dependent on God to draw near to you intensely so that you can make His presence  your refuge, glory, and strength. It is right for you to depend on God and not earthly sources!

In Christian churches, misdirected dependencies are often so well covered that they are seldom, if ever, addressed as sin. Rather than dependence on God, it seems that many encourage just the opposite. This should not be so.

You can measure a persons maturity in Christ by their dependence on God. Even so, many today have come to believe it would be selfish to depend on God as I describe. It is not.

It is right to depend on God. Trusting God's grace to draw near so that we can experience Him as our refuge, glory, and strength corrects the problem of our independence from God. 

It is not selfish to trust God's grace to draw near to you! It is right for us to depend on the closeness of our God as our confidence and security.

That God wants to be close enough to be your reason for confidence and security means that He wants to be your God! Trusting the closeness of anything else is idolatry.

But Dependence and Receiving From God is Good for Me!?

Why isn't it selfish to depend on God when doing so is exactly what you need most? Because your dependence honors God as God! 

Though quenching your thirst with the presence of God is something you need, doing so is not as self-seeking as it may seem. God designed your thirst exactly the way He wanted it. You honor God when you depend on Him.

It is right enjoy God and to blessed in the process. When we "drink" from earthly things and relationships, how do we feel? Natural chemicals (endorphines) are released in our brain and we feel a brief surge of energy and pleasure. When you feel a sense of well-being it is because of the way God designed you. He wants us to enjoy quenching our thirsty desires! It was true even from the time when we were very young.

Think for a moment of what it would be like for someone to trust you as their security. What would it be like if you made someone confident just by your being with them. How would it make you feel? You’d feel significant. You’d feel exalted. The truth is, you’d be in the process of being worshiped. The same is true for God when you depend on Him. When you glory in God, when He is what makes you feel secure and confident, He gets exalted. He gets the praise. He receives your undivided love.

Think of the pleasure you would be causing in God if you were to make Him your one and only God. Wow! Doesn’t it make sense that an all-wise, all-knowing, and loving God would design it this way? He gets exalted as God, and at the same time, He becomes to you what we need most.

It is right to depend on God. It is not selfish to trust God to give you the Holy Spirit so you can depend on His presence as your refuge, your glory, and strength. The Bible says, "Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant" (2 Cor. 3:5,6a). It is because of the new covenant that you don’t have to depend on "other gods" of this world. Your adequacy is from God! Dependence on God is not wrong or selfish in any way.

Consider another reason it is not selfish to depend on God. Depending on God as your basis for confidence and security is what increases your purity before the Lord. Repentance—in accordance with the scriptures—is very effective at increasing your purity before God because the needs that normally drive you to do what you don’t want are actually being met by the presence of God.

We desperately need to feel secure and confident, but earthly relationships fail us and our circumstances seldom cooperate for very long. Dependence on the "other gods" of this world is often deeply painful. When that happens we become insecure and even the twisted glory of sin can seem reassuring to us. Sins like anger, sexual impurity, gluttony, gossiping, these all are ways of dealing with our insecurities—apart from God. Turning to God means that we can find freedom from our sinful and damaging ways of living because the presence of God becomes what soothes us, reassures us, and makes us feel confident and secure. The apostle Paul wrote,

Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light...behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts (Rom. 13:12b-14).

When you actually put on the presence of God as light around you, He becomes your armor. Doing so, is deeply reassuring and makes you secure. The result is that you are strengthened greatly, not only against the schemes of the devil, but also against your own desires that tend to push you toward sin (Jam. 1:14). When God is your confidence and your security, you don’t have to resort to sin in order to find the reassurance He designed you to need.

Let me say again that our maturity in Christ can be measured by our dependence on God. Independence from Him is sin and it inevitably results in sin. That we are not to have "other gods" means we no other alternative than to draw near and let God give us the Holy Spirit!

It is by deciding you are going to quench your thirst with God that He becomes your God—as God defines it! It is not selfish to trust His grace of God to fill your longings for His presence!

In and of itself, your need to feel reassured, confident and secure is right and good. God designed you to need to depend on something because He wants worshipers. Dependence is worship. But, He wants "true worshipers" so He also gave you a choice about what you can depend on. You can only choose God or "other gods." It is right to depend on God! Where we go wrong is when we choose to depend on earthly sources—most of the time we do it without even thinking.

You can direct your heart to depend less on earthly things and more fully on God! This site and the ebooks show you how. 

For eBooks click here

Please consider supporting this ministry with prayer and by purchasing the ebooks. Thanks.

Please Ask Questions on the FORUM...Thanks! 

Please Sign the GUESTBOOK...

I am praying for the Lord's abundant blessing on your efforts to direct your heart toward Him.

Barry.

     Why Repent — Continued...

E-mail the Author...

(C) Barry Hall 1999

Information on this site may be reproduced for personal or for instructional purposes if it is not being used for resale. If a page is distributed for instructional purposes, the web address must be included. Printed quotes must include the authors name and the web address. Quotes for use in publications intended for resale need the written permission of the author. All rights reserved.

Scriptures are taken from the updated NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1987, 1988, The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Other scriptures are from the New International Version or Amplified Bible as noted.