Dependent on Him

God may allow His servant to succeed when He has disciplined him to a point where he does not need to succeed to be happy. The man who is elated by success and is cast down by failure is still a carnal man. At best his fruit will have a worm in it.  A.W. Tozer

A man by the name of Wallace Johnson made this statement: “I am totally dependent on God for help in everything I do.  Otherwise I honestly believe I would start to fall apart in months.”  Wallace Johnson was fired from his job at the sawmill and he had no retirement and no severance package.  When his wife asked him what he planned to do, he stated that he was going to do what he always wanted to do.  He told her he was going to mortgage their home and go into the building business.

In 1952 he and his co-founder formed the motel chain Holiday Inn. They were the first chain to provide a Bible in every room.  He said it was to help people find Jesus and the solution to their problems, no matter who they were. Wallace later went on to say that if he could locate the man who fired him, he would thank him for what he had done.  He then stated, “This was God’s unerring and wondrous plan to get him into the career he was shaped to do.”

Have you had circumstances in your life where you failed at something?  We all have had those moments.  If we look at failure from a worldly perspective, we will buy into the definition that failure means that we have not met a desirable or intended objective.  The world believes that failure is the opposite of success. 

I believe that God allows things to happen to us for a reason. Sometimes it is necessary for us to fail because we are proud and we believe that we are the reason for our success. If we believe that God provides us with everything we have on earth, then our success really doesn’t have anything to do with us.  God created us and He knows what we are capable of in this life.  He also wants us to do what we were shaped to do.  His best is produced in us when we let go of what the world thinks we should do, and instead do what God created us to do. Depend on God for every decision you make in life. 

Prayer for the Day: Heavenly Father, You know what the best is for me.  Too many times I try to make the most important decisions without consulting You first.  Things fall apart when I neglect to depend on You.  I need Your help to guide me in the right direction.  When I fail at something, help me not to get caught up in the failure and instead look for the blessing. 

       

Scripture: Justification by Faith

O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?  This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?

Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?—just as Abraham “believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” Therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham. And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, “In you all the nations shall be blessed.”  So then those who are of faith are blessed with believing Abraham.  Galatians 3:1-9