To ignore the presence of the alive and always active Jesus is to miss the essence of Christianity. The alive Jesus is everywhere. Since He’s not bound by place or time, He can live in and through you anytime and anyplace.

To believe in Jesus is to daily rely on Him. Self-reliance isn’t Christianity. Christ-reliance is.

Shift your reliance from yourself to the alive Jesus. To say that Jesus is alive while ignoring Him like He’s dead is a contradiction. When you’re truly relying on the alive Jesus, you won’t be easily accepted by those who aren’t. Human pride rejects reliance on God.

Grace (the invitation to rely on the alive Jesus) is not entitlement. It’s completely undeserved. Rely on the alive Jesus! Reliance on Jesus must happen moment by moment. It’s never a once and done. I’ve found self-reliance to be very disappointing, but reliance on the alive Jesus to be amazingly comforting and fulfilling.

It’s hard not to feel hopeless if you’re relying on anything else but God. The wisest thing that you can do is to always stay intensely aware of your need for God.

Until we begin to trust in and rely on Jesus in daily life, we’ll never know the reality of His presence and power. God revealed Himself to the writers of the Bible. When I read it, their revelation comes alive in me and gives me faith to daily rely on Jesus.

If you’re unwilling to rely on Jesus, He’s not your Ruler. He’s not your Lord and Master. If want one person to fix and change your life, begin to daily rely on the alive Jesus. Rely on Him to lead and direct you, not on your desires, feelings and opinions.

In your daily life, do you primarily rely on and trust in your own self-effort or Jesus? Unfortunately, church seems to rely more on human effort and programming than on the alive Jesus. The typical church format doesn’t train the people of God to actively rely on Jesus. Instead, it makes them a passive audience.

When Christians gather in His name, Jesus wants to be the Lord (the Ruler) of the meeting and not to be treated like a passive bystander. It’s interesting that when Christians get up and go to church, they’ve been trained to sit down and stay with a program. Relying on religion isn’t the same as relying on the alive Jesus.

Christians would grow stronger spiritually if a pastor would hold himself back in a church service and make room for their Spirit-led input. A pastor who does in a church service what people in a congregation could be trained to do themselves (like have Spirit-led input) hinders their spiritual development and reliance on Jesus.

When you rely
On yourself
You ignore
And deny
Jesus’ presence
And power.