Independent Initiative

Six times Jesus uses the phrase, “my own initiative,” to reference His will, authority, and option to make His own decisions. In five of the six instances, He declares dependence upon His Father over His own initiative. The lone reference to Him exerting His own will comes in John 10:18 as He takes the initiative to lay down His life in obedience to His Father.

While Jesus was the strongest willed man to ever set foot on the planet, He was also the most dependent.

You see (I hope) from my blogs this week, it was Moses’ dependence upon the Lord that gave him strength. It was Christ’s dependence upon the Father that created the power He demonstrated.

Here’s the take away: God never intended for us to live the Christian life for Him. After all, it isn’t our life; it is Christ’s. God’s intention is for us to depend upon Christ to live His life through us.

I’m quite sure it was monumentally difficult for Moses to throw his rod down.  And, I can’t even begin to grasp what it meant for Christ to hang the use of His divine power on the coat rack as He left heaven.

The difficulty of following suit is intimidating, but the power and testimony of their lives—Moses’ and Jesus’ in this case—remains unquestionable. Our confidence is this: the Powerful One dwells within us and seeks our Heavenly Father’s will, not His own initiative (Jn. 16:13).