The Hidden Danger of Self-Dependence… I have a question for my weekend readers: “Who or what do you depend on?” As we start Holy Week tomorrow, our weakness of depending on ourselves rather than God kept popping up in my brain. When that happens, I know God is pushing me to take a deep dive on the subject because God knows someone out there needs to hand over their control from self.

Have you ever gone to church and either the music, liturgy, message, etc., just impacted your heart like never before? You leave in a state of euphoria that you don’t want to end. Yet, if we depend on this happening all the time we’ll be discouraged and that is when we pull back our dependence on God because the euphoria is gone and the grind of daily living takes hold. If you’re like me, I don’t want to come down from that spiritual mountaintop to the valleys of life and its real temptations, challenges and trials!

So I want us to focus on Jesus this week. His 3 years of ministry on earth will be coming to a tough end with beatings, ugly taunts, screaming crowds, betrayal from friends, and finally a horrible painful death on a cross. I cannot imagine what was going through his mind. Unlike us, we don’t know the future, but Jesus did way ahead of time. As battered as he was with such violence, Jesus didn’t waver, he didn’t depend on himself, all that he had depended on God alone. And that is where we need to be.

I believe the church should equip us as well as challenge us and build us up. Coming together with God’s people in worship creates a happening like nowhere else. Worship is our safe place, one we can depend on because Jesus told us “Whenever two or three of you come together in my name, I am there with you.” [Matthew 18:20 CEV] God’s presence is manifested in our worship and how often do we find answers and resolutions for the problems we have tried to take on ourselves? It is that dependence on God that changes everything!

The psalmist Asaph grappled with the age-old question of why the wicked who depended on themselves, cared less about God and yet, darn-it, they prospered. It bugged him and it still bugs us Christians today. So Asaph prayed and then it dawned on him why. In his Psalm of Praise and Lament, (73:16-17 [Voice]), he shares the answer with us: “Trying to solve this mystery on my own exhausted me; I couldn’t bear to look at it any further. So I took my questions to the True God, and in His sanctuary I realized something so chilling and final: their lives have a deadly end.” Wow, what a chilling end of our lives when we depend on ourselves alone!

Asaph’s reminder to always depend on God was exactly what Jesus did throughout this entire week that we call Holy Week. Perhaps the word ‘holy’ seems odd for a week of such sorrow and violence, but we call it Holy in honor of Jesus, the holy One who never sinned, the One who stayed the course by putting his dependence into his Father’s hands. Think of this week and how Jesus could accomplish such tasks. Seek and feel the greatness of God, a Father who loved his only Son deeply, yet loved us so much He put in motion His Son’s death and resurrection so we, too, could be with Him forever.

Don’t get caught up in self-dependence. It leads to boasting, selfishness, and, as Asaph realized, a ‘deadly end’. Each day of this Holy Week, ponder on the greatness of God, remind yourselves of the perfect truths of God and how God has brought you through tough times. It will put your problems in perspective and give a new focus and determination to get rid of self-dependence and surrender it all to the One who created us and gives us life here and for eternity. Let this Holy Week be your journey to that revelation, AMEN.