April 6--When You Can't Muscle-Up the Willpower or Want-To

I can get stuck in my muck and not be able to find my way out, no matter which way I turn.  But I'm learning to ask God for help.  These passages helped me out just this morning:  Deuteronomy 29-30, Luke 12:1-12, Psalm 78:1-31, Proverbs 12:19-20.

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Eve reads her Bible journal aloud on this episode.

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Transcript

Deuteronomy 29-30

Luke 12:1-12

Psalm 78:1-31, Prayer, Proverbs 12:19-20

SPEAKER_00 0:00

April sixth When you can't muscle up the willpower or want to. I won't be reading the scripture references for those. Please check the written post. Sadie, aged nine, was teary eyed when confessing that she couldn't get it together. I'm distracted by everything in my room, Mommy. I can't do my schoolwork. I can't do my chores. I was the whip crack in homeschoolin' mamma, but her tears took the scolding right out of my mouth. Sometimes I need a break, Sadie. I bet you do too. Let's forget about your lists and snuggle. Want to? We climbed into the bed I was making and I told her a story about when she was three. She'd asked me to tell her the stories about when I was little, but she was still little and doing the funny things kids do at age three. So when I told her one of them, she said, Well that's not funny. I just did that yesterday. We laughed remembering it as we snuggled. I asked God to help her feel his strength where she was weak, to help her relax and feel how loved she was. After a little while she said, I want to get up now, and she got up and did all of her work, which was something considering how her day had begun. Sometimes willpower and want to can't be muscled up. We've got to go to the love source to plug in for a bit. This is what today's passages tell us. The Old Testament chapters are Deuteronomy twenty nine to thirty. They'd never kept their promise to God long enough to shake a stick at, but God still said it was time to make fresh promises with him all over again. But it wasn't a new promise he wanted to make with them. It's the same promise he made way back when with Abraham, the same covenant promise he'd kept with Abe's kids ever since, even though they hadn't kept their side of it. Even so, God wanted to renew this same covenant again before they entered the land he'd been promising since Egypt, and just in case they'd forgotten what this covenant even was, he reminded them of it. His part was to promise to be their very own God, the God who cared for them, and their part was to promise to be his very own people who obeyed him. What God wanted was so simple, though Moses spent a lot of pages spelling it out just to make sure they really understood it this time. After all, the audience that stood before him had changed. It had been more than forty years since they walked out of Egypt with their parents. Those who were adults in the great getaway out of Egypt had died off, and their children were now standing before him. Moses reminded them of their history, and he gave them the chance to sign on as his people now that they're grown. If Moses said it once, he'd said it a hundred times. God being their God meant that out of all the people on earth to shower his love and affection on, he chosen these people to receive it. He rescued them, he provided for them, he protected them, and he blessed them beyond their ability to deserve it. And being God's chosen people meant that they would respond to him by loving him first and most, by worshiping him only, by obeying what he told them, because he was their very own God, and he alone knew what was best for them. Just in case the worst happened and they forsook him like their parents did, here's his you can't completely fail plan. If they chose badly and wandered again, God would restore them to himself and their land again if they turned back to him. Considering all that he'd done for them and already forgiven, it was an astonishing offer. But it shouldn't be. After all, it's not death and destruction that God is about. While he says quite a lot about how hard life will be without him, he doesn't focus on punishment for its own sake. In fact, the difficulties they endured for turning away from him were signposts and warnings designed to bring them back to him, not to punish and be done with them. God's focus was on saving, restoring, forgiving, abundant living, blessing beyond imagining, wholeness and healing, and all this just for the asking, and it still is. His heart is to rescue us and bring us home to him where the good life is, no matter how long it takes or what we've done while we wandered away. God's never give up, love at all costs would be seen when their parents complained that he was out to get them in the desert. God sent snakes to bite them as discipline, but they were saved from dying simply by looking at a bronze snake Moses mounted on a stick. God didn't require them to do penance or make sacrifices so they could live. All they had to do was look with faith at the symbolic snake. Jesus himself would say that the snake on a stick symbolized him, but only turn and look at him, not get yourself together first, not read your Bible and pray and say um teen I'm sorry's or hail Mary's. Yep. Repentance means turning or returning to God, not getting yourself cleaned up first. This is hard to believe, especially if you've done something really awful. But this is how the prodigal son went home to his father. He'd wasted half his father's money in wild living, but finally got fed up eating with pigs and turned back to him. The father's been watching and waiting since his son left, so he sees him a long way off and runs to meet him. And when he does, he hardly listens to his apology. The father's too busy getting a party started to celebrate the son who's finally come home. No hard feelings, no questions asked. This is God's heart for each of us to make a fresh start by turning back to him and to live a life of joy in his presence, not a life of drudgery and dry duty. Abundant life is what Jesus made possible for each of us. But God doesn't pour out this new life on people who refuse to love him or do what he says, determined to run after any other God rather than to God Himself. Moses says here that it must be a wholehearted return we make to him, quote, nothing half hearted here, you must return to God, your God, totally heart and soul, holding nothing back, end quote. And if we do, quote, God will outdo himself, making things go well for you, end quote. Wouldn't you love to experience God outdoing himself and making things go well for you? If following God were simply a matter of just doing it, most everybody would, I think, who hasn't turned over a new life to get a handle on an issue in January just to fall flat before April. The problem is with sin that creeps in, and sin is no small issue, it's got to be dealt with. Moses' charge to God's people that day was simple, to keep a sharp eye out, to listen to him obediently, to firmly embrace him, and the people surely wanted to. They said all the right words and made all the right promises, but even for all Moses' pleading and warning, they eventually won't do it. Something more was needed to bring about the life God wanted for them, because ultimately, no matter how hard we may try to do it, pleasing God can't depend on us because even the best of us will fail him. We have to look at something besides obedience as the bottom line for pleasing God because living our own way is an urge as strong as breathing. I look back in the text to see if there's something I miss for dealing with sin, and it's this quote, God your God will cut away the thick calluses on your heart and your children's hearts freeing you, end quote. Do you hear something extraordinary? Freeing you is something that God does in you. He's the Savior who rescues. You don't do it for yourself. Haven't you tried and failed already anyway? If God doesn't reach down and enable us, no one will obey him just like Israel didn't. So God Himself came and lived and died and rose to resurrect us as a people who love and serve Him with new hearts of flesh. The good news of Jesus goes deeper than giving us renewed willpower and want to. While sin leaves us hogtied and unable, Jesus came to break our chains, so we're freed from sin. We simply trust him while his spirit gives us his power and enables us to live for him. I have to keep asking for his help, but no matter, my rescues don't depend on me because God is my Savior, as Moses said quote, Oh yes, He is life itself, end quote. When you can't muscle up the willpower or want to, ask God for a fresh start with a renewed heart and watch what He will do in you. The New Testament passage is Luke twelve to twelve. Whiskey and wild women aren't at the top of Jesus' warning list, goody goodies are, those folks who pride themselves on their spiritual piety and performance. Thousands press in on him, but Jesus' main concern is telling his guys to watch out for religious phonies. He says not to let these Pharisee fakers intimidate them into pretending the way they do. This is the biggest threat to authentic faith, thinking that you've got what it takes, that you don't really need a savior in the first place. At least whiskey and wild women eventually throw you on the ash heap so you feel your need of Jesus, but a self satisfied heart has a hard time feeling anything but proud. I know because this is who I was. I used to think it's easy to be good. God's lucky to have me, but one day it wasn't easy, and I found myself on an ash heap of my own making. I needed a savior, and I had no idea. God reminded me that Jesus came for pretenders as well as for big fat sinners. Turned out I was both, and I cried out. When you can't muscle up the willpower or want to, thank God for this peek into who you really are, a sinner, and ask Jesus to save you once again. From Psalm seventy eight one to thirty one. Think again, the Psalmist says, if you think God likes to pounce, sucks joy out of the room, looks to find fault with you. Even after all God did for his people in the wilderness, they still complained that he was out to get them. They had no intention of trusting his help, but God helped them anyway, end quote. This is who God is, the one who's faithful even when we're faithless, the one who helps even when we don't trust him, the one who keeps bringing up sun and springtime while we're chasing every other blame thing. I had trouble sitting down to write this morning, but when I stopped looking at what was wrong with me and began looking at what was right with him, I was overwhelmed. I don't ask him to keep my heart pumping or gravity working or tides pulling or allergy medicine on the shelves, but he does these things anyway. When you can't muscle up the willpower or want to, remember who God is and let his goodness melt you. Prayer. God, I keep trying to be good enough to earn my way to you, but you keep reminding me that Jesus alone saves. Thank you that your way has never been about bootstraps and ought to's, but is about looking to you and asking for help. In Jesus' name, so be it. From Proverbs 12, 19 to 20. Truth doesn't go out of style. Lies, on the other hand, pop like soap bubbles. Evil plans make an evil planner, but peace brings joy to everybody. Passages in Deuteronomy, Luke, Psalms, and Proverbs are selected for today in the yearly Bible. This is Eve de Bartleaban, Roebuck.