“A truly humble man is sensible of his natural distance from God; of his dependence on Him; of the insufficiency of his own power and wisdom; and that it is by God’s power that he is upheld and provided for, and that he needs God’s wisdom to lead and guide him, and His might to enable him to do what he ought to do for Him.” – Jonathan Edwards
I love this quote from Jonathan Edwards, because it puts my position with God into perspective. In a world where new-age beliefs of self-enlightenment has infiltrated the church and our own inner power has become our god, we can often lose sight of who God really is. That he is not dependent on our acceptance of Him or even our acknowledgement of him as God. He is God whether we accept Him or not, whether we believe in Him or not and one day we will have to stand before him to give an account of our lives.
Genesis 18 gives an account of God visiting Abraham and telling him that he has judged Sodom and Gomorrah and that these two cities will be destroyed. Abraham then pleads with God not to go ahead with his plan; he gets God to agree that if there are only 10 righteous people in the city, he will not destroy it. This is a subject for another day, but what strikes me is that when Abraham starts his argument he says ‘will not the Judge of all the earth do right’.
If I examine my own life, this phrase is enough to strike fear into my very heart. If a Holy, Righteous God were to judge me by His standards, there is no way that I could be found innocent and if He were to ‘do right’ I would already stand condemned. Thank God it is not my ‘inner strength’ or my ‘good works’ that will testify for me on that day. It will be the Son of God himself who will stand beside me and say ‘I know this one, the price has been paid in full.’
Christo Strydom