There’s so much I cannot do, but there’s one thing all of us can do
By Dean Collins
The list of things I cannot do would be rather long should I ever choose to make that list. I bet your list would be equally as long. I suppose both of us could likely learn to do some of the things on the list, but we probably never did because we either had no real interest or we didn’t have the resources or it just made sense to leave those things for others to do.
I have decent athletic skills for my age and always did in my younger years. I am good enough to have fun with a few sports and not embarrass myself, but I simply don’t have the talent to be a premier athlete. I could also never be an astronaut, a surgeon, a comedian, or a chef. I enjoy learning about space or medicine, am sometimes funny, and I can cook. But I could not turn any of these interests or talents into a career.
Honestly, most of the things I have accomplished in my career were also things I never felt equipped to do. And in every one of my various career roles, I had more than one honest conversation with God to say I actually can’t do this job unless God would step in and give me wisdom, strength, and the resources to do the job. Otherwise, I knew I would fall flat on my face.
I am not trying to be super spiritual about any of this, but simply honest that most of my accomplishments that were of any value had little to do with my abilities and everything to do with God’s grace at work in and around my life.
The one thing none of us can do
Paul makes it very clear in his letter to the Romans that one thing none of us can do is save ourselves. We can’t earn salvation by adhering to the law. We can’t be made whole by any amount of effort. We can’t buy eternal life. There is only one way, and Scripture says that one way is through faith.
After letting his readers understand that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (3:23), Paul says we are “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” No one in history or presently or in the future can be saved any other way.
This is such good news! We don’t have to do the impossible, but by faith we can be counted as righteous, even as our great spiritual father Abraham was when God made his promise to Abraham and Abraham chose to believe God.
What we can choose to do
Paul makes clear to his first-century readers what is also clear to us as we read some 2,000 years later. The gift of salvation and spiritual transformation comes to all the very same way: choosing to believe that God sent Jesus who died on a cross and whom God rose from the dead. His death and resurrection are our pathway to God’s promises and to full access to his grace.
Abraham chose to believe God’s promises, though they were hard for him even to imagine. Yet by faith he chose to trust God. The good news is that every day we are given the same opportunity to trust in the one who created the world and has kept every one of his promises.
So maybe neither of us needs to bother with all the things we can’t do and simply lean into the one thing we can do. It will change us and bring hope and life to those around us. The one good thing we can do today is to put all of our trust in Jesus. He will come through today, tomorrow, and all the way through eternity!
Your time with God’s Word
Romans 4:13-25; 3:23-24 ESV
