Realize 'I can't do it!' and be free!

In I Kings 6, when Solomon’s building the temple, all of its stones were pre-cut and shaped off-site at a quarry and then brought in, resulting in no noise from hammers, axes, etc., as the temple went up. It just kind of grew silently.

Similarly, the work to shape and form us Believers was designed and finished before we were ever set into place in the building.

Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:10, ‘[10] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.’

He explains later in the chapter:

[18] For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
[19] Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
[20] And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
[21] In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
[22] In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.

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“God’s made you a part of something that before the foundation of the world He planned to do and He’s already formed it and fitted you into it,” says Jordan. “It’s His design and you grow in that. If you’re going to bring that design into the reality of your experience, you appropriate it by faith. The reality is that’s the reality.

“Jesus Christ came to live His life fully in you and Paul says, ‘Wake up, dudes, don’t you know that?!’ If God came to dwell in you, how should you live?! Wake up! If you’ve got an asset like THAT, what should you do?! USE IT!

“God’s in you to live HIS life. Now, in I Corinthians 6, that’s talking about you as an individual. His purpose in you personally is to make your life a vehicle, a vessel; that is, a living manifestation of the one who inhabits you.

“You remember how Paul, in Philippians 1:20, says, ‘According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death.’

“What he’s saying is that when people would see him, even in the extremity of death, they would see that the one he treasured and was of the greatest magnitude to him was Jesus Christ, and when he made choices, he made them based upon what God’s Word said. When he took actions, it was based upon what God wanted done.

“The way sin doesn’t run your life is you’re not under the law; you’re not focusing on your performance. You’re under grace, looking at who God has made you in His Son.

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“I have a friend who doesn’t like how a song goes, ‘He set me free.’ He says you need to sing, ‘He made me free.’ That’s a technicality, but he’s right. God doesn’t just set you free; He MADE you something you weren’t before. You’re free!

“Paul says in I Corinthians 7:22, [22] For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.’ You’re the Lord’s freeman! That’s the reality, and your faith can believe that.

“Spiritual growth is a process of paying more and more attention to God’s righteousness and less and less attention to your own.

“Preachers spend time trying to get people to do more and more--try harder, live more radically for God, change your life, etc.—and the result is really stunted spiritual growth because you fix your eyes on yourself and you can’t do it.

“It’s not going to be you. And when you’re in those moments where it’s you, and you come to the conclusion, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s good! Because you know where to go to the One who can.

“Most of the thinking about Christian living and sanctification is really just terribly narcissistic. It’s thinking, ‘How we doing? Am I doing it right? Am I not doing it right?’

“We ponder our spiritual failures and we brood over our spiritual successes and it’s all about us. The more you focus on your need to be better, the worse you really get. You wind up becoming neurotic and self-absorbed and all of life’s about you.

“When you’re possessed with your performance, instead of Christ’s performance--when you spend your time thinking about what YOU’RE doing, instead of what HE’S doing, well, then, what are you going to do but get worse?! That hinders your spiritual growth because it makes you increasingly self-centered.

“Sanctification, or set-apart living, is forgetting about yourself: ‘It’s not me! It’s Christ!’ The grace of God works--is manifested, put on display--in your minuses, not your pluses. It’s in your weaknesses, not your strengths. Now, that’s the opposite of religion. Religion says, ‘YOU got to make it, YOU got to create it , or you’re going to fail.’

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“My wife has a new chrysanthemum plant on the kitchen counter that just had a little leaf come out. Now, if she’d of pulled that thing up out of the pot and looked at its roots, and stuck it back down, you know what would happen to it? It wouldn’t grow so good.

“If you’re always uprooting, digging the thing up, checking on its growth (‘How am I doing?’), it ain’t never going to get anywhere. It’s Christ who’s the issue. He’s the cornerstone; the point of reference that all of our life and all of our growth originates from. Spiritual growth and deliverance is by God’s design and God’s timing.

“But you know what happens? If you look at Romans 7:1, Paul says, ‘Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth?’ Then he writes in verse 14, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.’

“I don’t like to argue with Paul, but that verse is wrong. Oh, I know Paul’s saying it, but Paul’s not sold under sin. He just spent 23 verses in chapter 6, and six verses in chapter 7, telling you he’s free. And then he started looking at himself and his performance and said, ‘You know, I don’t look free.’

“The more he focused on himself, those accusatory thoughts came in and sin revived and he began to see his failure. You say, ‘Well, I don’t have any failure.’ Well, that’s called pride. The Bible says that the man who says he has no sin has made God a liar and the truth’s not in him.

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“You go back to Psalms 3 and that psalmist could have just as easily been talking about Job of old. He says, ‘People look at me and they see what’s going on in my life and say, [There’s no help from God for him; he’s so far gone even God can’t help him!]’

“Paul says, ‘You know, those voices of condemnation and accusing are going to come because you’re conscious of who you are in you, and when you focus on who you are in you, you know what happens? ‘O wretched man that I am.’

“You see, it’s an inner struggle. There’s a spiritual battle that goes on but for faith. The victory is an inner victory, seeing the invisible reality. Hebrews 11 says Moses won the victory over Pharaoh by ‘seeing Him who is invisible.’ It was by faith, looking at the truth of God.

“Paul says, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

“When you have your ‘I’ moments, they’re really not ‘I’ moments. They’re moments where you need to be learning, ‘I can’t do this!’ And when you see, ‘I can’t do it,’ that’s what Galatians 2 told you.

“You only learn two things in all of your Christian life: ‘It’s not I, it’s Christ.’ And when you get into the, ‘The deliverance isn’t here; I can’t do it,’ you say, ‘Whoa, I need to look at Christ! Because HE can; because HE did!' ”