Damnable Ignorance

"Know ye that the Lord, He is God; it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." Ps. 100:3

"But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? For all things come of Thee, and of Thine own hand have we given Thee." I Chr. 29:14

Humility, joy, love, and every other aspect of Christ-likeness comes from a resolute focusing of our heart and mind on the fact of our necessary dependence. "The Son can do nothing of Himself," Jesus said to the Jews, "except what He seeth the Father do" (John 5:19). Such is the nature of true Christ-likeness: a state of utter acknowledgment and living in the reality of one's dependence on God.
What person can truly claim to have "arrived" by their own strengths? Many do make such a claim, but it is all noisome hubris. Their strengths are God's strengths, for He is their Creator and thus has given them those strengths. Likewise, which of His children can truly claim to be their own man/woman? Sadly, many do, and they boast of their strengths "as if [they] had not received it" (I Cor. 4:7). It is God, and not ourselves, who "makes" us in every way; we are His and not our own. To claim otherwise is nothing but pride and Sin, the parents of such damnable ignorance, for many are cast into Hell thinking that they can live and move and have their being apart from God.

-Jon Vowell