This is the point of encountering those things in your life you cannot handle — you are forced to turn to Christ. Did you really think you could be kind for the rest of your life without the inner help of Jesus? One day of kindness is a miracle. What about forgiving? Generous? Honest? Did you really think you could overcome your lifelong strongholds without some sort of Lazarus-like breakthrough? It simply isn’t going to happen — not without the life of Jesus in you.

This realization was an epiphany for me.

I have spent most of my adult years trying to find those keys that would enable people to become whole. Like an archaeologist raking for buried treasure, I’ve combed through the provinces of counseling, spiritual discipline, inner healing, deliverance, addiction recovery — anything that would help me help others get better. Like Schliemann when his shovel struck the buried ruins of Troy, the epiphany I have come to is this:

Jesus has no intention of letting you become whole apart from his moment-to-moment presence and life within you.

Your brokenness and your sin are not something you overcome so that you can walk with God. They are the occasions for you to cry out for the life of God in you to rescue you. Not God outside you, up in the sky somewhere. Christ in you, your only hope of glory.

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