Inhale, exhale. Breathe in God’s strength and graciousness instead of running on your own steam.
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada for whom breathing is a precious gift!
Okay, okay, I’m aware that breathing is important to everybody, but for a quadriplegic like me with very limited lung capacity any, absolutely any sinus infection, any head or chest cold can be devastating. A few years ago, when I struggled through a long bout against double pneumonia, first thing they did was put me in the hospital. While I was in critical care, the respiratory therapist set up an oxygen tank beside my bed so I could breathe easier. Oh, my goodness, never did I appreciate oxygen so much! I mean, up until my illness, I inhaled and exhaled the stuff with hardly a thought. You know, you take breathing for granted. But in the hospital, I discovered afresh how life sustaining oxygen truly is. It's my body's life and breath.
And this is often the way we relate to Jesus, our true life and breath. Acts 17:28 says, "For in him we live and move and have our being." And because we live, and move, and have our being in Jesus, it is so easy to take his life-sustaining grace for granted. We forget that apart from him we can't do a thing (just like it says in John 15). We forget that when we put our Christian life on automatic pilot, it’s the same thing as quote "walking in the flesh." When we forget that we live, and move, and have our being in Christ, our prayers become dull, witnessing becomes dry, our jobs become routine, worship becomes drab, and relationships begin to sag under the weight of selfishness. What's worse, our relationship to the Lord turns into a chore. The Lord seems to lose I don’t know, vitality, becoming a wooden icon in our hearts; a mere measuring rod for our behavior. It all happens when we forget to inhale his life-giving Spirit on a moment-to-moment basis. It happens when we sing, “I need thee, Oh I need thee every hour, I need thee,” but only recognize our need of him when a problem crops up. It happens when we fail to see the God of grace as our very life and breath. It happens when we take Jesus for granted.
Nothing is more mechanical than when we attempt to live a supernatural life apart from God. I think that is one of the biggest spiritual barriers to growth in Christ. As the day begins, we kind of say to ourselves, ‘You know Jesus, I accepted you many years ago, and I’ve been to enough Bible studies now; I’ve studied enough scripture that I kind of understand right from wrong. So, as I head into this day, I may check in with you now and then – maybe – but I pretty much have this Christian thing figured out. I know the lay of the land. I can take it from here.’ If you live your Christian life that way, you’re not inhaling the strength of God; you’re running on your own steam, not God's; you’re running on pride.This is why the apostle tells us in Romans 6:11 to, "Count yourselves (every day; it’s an everyday sort of thing) count yourselves alive to God in Christ Jesus." To "count" means to take a daily inventory, to consciously consider yourself “alive to God in Christ Jesus." So do what I do so many, many times during the day – stop and pause often and ask God for moment-by-moment grace. Take a minute to reflect on his Lordship, his preeminence in your life. Inhale his graciousness. Remind yourself, that is, to count yourself alive to God and then move forward into the next hour fully aware of the life-giving strength of the Spirit. And you know what, it’s worth reminding your Christian friends, so visit my radio page at joniradio.org and share this program with your Facebook friends.
© Joni and Friends