Your New "Can Do"

There’s a Native American fable about a young brave who happened upon a nest of golden eagle eggs. Deciding to have some fun, he took one of the eggs and placed it in the nest of some prairie chickens. The egg hatched and the changeling eagle grew up with the brood of prairie chickens. Believing himself to be like everyone else around him, he behaved accordingly. He clucked and cackled and scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to live on. He never flew more than a few feet off the ground, since prairie chickens are incapable of rising any higher. Years passed and one day the young eagle was scratching along with one of his older prairie chicken brothers when a fleeting shadow passed over them. They looked up and saw, high in the sky, the soaring form of something gliding on the currents of the wind. “What a beautiful bird!” the young eagle exclaimed. “That’s an eagle,” the older brother informed him, staring upward. “A golden eagle. He’s the king of the air. No bird can compare with him.” Then he lowered his gaze and added, “But don’t give it a second thought; you could never be like him.” And back to scratching they went. Indeed, the changeling eagle never gave another thought to that soaring sight. And according to the fable, he died as he had lived, never rising any higher than a prairie chicken’s existence.

Tragically, this same story is repeated in too many of our lives. Like eagles, we were created and redeemed to mount up on God-given wings. Our privileged calling is to know God more and more intimately, to know the thrill of unrestrained, exuberant worship and to abandon ourselves to the high adventure of warring on behalf of the Kingdom of God in this dark world by loving others to Jesus.

This is our God-given design and that’s why we can’t be truly satisfied with anything less. We can never find the intense fulfillment our souls long for while scratching around in carnal living or mediocre spirituality. We were made and fully equipped at the time of our conversion to soar! In our New Covenant relationship, God has placed within us the deeply designed desire to do the will of God. It’s a gift of God’s grace in us. Deep down in our spirit, every true believer in Jesus Christ does want to do the will of God. And either we are unaware of it or we’re blocked to the realization of it. However, in Ezekiel 36 God reveals the truth that He has provided four primary spiritual provisions that gives you Your New “Can Do!”

God gives us not only a new set of “want to’s” for doing His will, but also a new “can do” through His Spirit to actually carry out our new inclinations. The point is: The Christian life isn’t just hard; it’s flat-out impossible to live. It becomes possible only when God injects His fullness into His people’s hearts and that’s exactly what He’s done in the New Covenant. So let’s attempt to recognize and release these four spiritual realities: your new: Purity, Identity, Disposition and Power. Each is purely the gift of God alone, received through Christ alone, by faith alone. Therefore, Christ alone is our key to Christian living and He has already placed all of these supernatural resources permanently within your life, ready for release every day of your life on earth. So through Your New ‘Can Do’:

I. Recognize Your New Purity verse 25

“I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean …” Jesus said in the context of our abiding in Him, “You are already clean” (John 15:3). And when washing the disciples feet in John 13:10 said “. . . And you are clean . . .” In Christ you have received a new purity.

In 1829 a man named George Wilson was arrested for robbery and murder in a US mail heist. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death by hanging. Some friends intervened on his behalf and were able to obtain his pardon from President Andrew Jackson. But when told of this, Wilson refused it saying he wanted to die. Well, the sheriff didn’t know what to do, how do you execute a man officially pardoned? An appeal was made to the President who perplexed turned the matter over to the US Supreme court. Chief Justice John Marshall gave this ruling: A pardon is a piece of paper, the value of which depends on its acceptance by the person implicated. Anyone under the sentence of death would hardly be expected to refuse a pardon, but if it’s refused, it’s no pardon. Thus, George Wilson was executed while his signed pardon lay on the sheriff’s desk!