Only Jesus

"I cry out to God Most High, to God, who fulfills His purpose for me" (Ps. 57:3, NIV).

"The Lord will fulfill His purpose for me" (Ps. 138:8, NIV).

"For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13, NIV)

"May the God of peace...equip you with everything good for doing His will, and may He work in us what is pleasing to Him, through Jesus Christ" (Heb. 13:20-21, NIV).

"And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us" (Rom. 8:3-4, NIV, using alternate rendering).


All of the scriptures quoted above say that God Himself will fulfill all of His good pleasure and holy purposes in me and through me and for me. Then why do I spend so much time trying to figure it all out? Why do I think that reading the "right book" will give me the information I need in order to cooperate with Him, so that the fulfillment will come sooner? While I do believe that I have a cooperative place in His purposes, I often find myself discontent with my present state. My part is to trust; His part is to fulfill and to do. But here's the "catch": even my ability to trust is the activity of the Trusting One who lives in me. I can not, through my efforts or my self-education, produce anything worthy of Him, much less pleasing to Him. It's Jesus - He is all in all. Only He can behave like Himself; only He can believe like He believes; only He can do what He does - and He does it in you and me on our behalf. Jesus gladly died for us; now He will gladly live for us. Jesus said, "I always do those things that please my Father" (John 8:29). He's still saying it, and He's still doing it - in us, for us. Thanks be to God!