Jesus told His disciples, ‘Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ (Matthew 26:41 NKJV) What did He mean by that? He meant that without the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, which He’d just told them they’d soon receive, they weren’t equal to the challenges they were about to face. It wasn’t a matter of His doubting their devotion and willingness to serve Him; He just knew they couldn’t do it by themselves. And you can’t either. So the sooner you stop trying, the better off you’ll be!

God isn’t looking for educated, sophisticated, well-meaning flesh, or any other kind of ‘flesh’, for that matter. He will only bless you when you acknowledge your total dependence on Him. That means praying and leaning on Him before you start, and continuing to pray and lean on Him until you reach the finish line. It also means that if God doesn’t send you and you insist on going, or if He tells you to do something and you try to accomplish it in your own strength, you’ll surely fail. And what’s more, He will allow you to keep failing until you reach the place where you can say like Paul: ‘Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent.’

It’s when we reach the end of our resources that God’s power kicks in. So the word for you today is: instead of leaning on your own strength and resources, depend wholly and solely on God.