- Reflect on how big Jesus is. And therefore how dependable. He's - just for starters - (v.14) the 'ruler of God's creation.'
- Reflect on how weak you are. And therefore so undependable - and then contrast your many weaknesses with Jesus' strengths (vs.17-18).
- Share your weaknesses with others. So they are not tempted to depend on you - but learn through you how God is the only one to totally depend on.
- Share the Gospel. There's nothing like seeking to share Jesus with a friend or family member to remind you that you can't 'convert' them yourself - that a miracle from God's Spirit is required.
- Seek to grow another Christian. Seek to mentor a younger Christian and you'll be reminded that there's only so much you can do - lasting growth in repentance and faith comes from God.
- Do stuff outside your comfort zone. Sign up for a short-term mission trip. Start serving in a new area. Think about joining the church-plant. All will get you depending on God more.
- Remember how quickly our wealth could disappear. We depend so much on it but we could lose our jobs, homes, savings, pensions - tomorrow. But we'd still have Jesus!
- Pray big prayers. That will take a miracle to be answered and can't be rationalised away by us thinking "That would have happened anyway."
- Obey God's Word. Even when it looks or feels crazy to do so - obeying commands that are difficult or counter-cultural shows we're really trusting in Jesus.
- Give away money. More than you think you can afford - so that you have to trust in His provision for you and your family and not your own efforts.
- Keep going when things are hard. Our immediate instinct is to retreat when the going gets tough - rather than seeing it as a wonderful opportunity to trust in Jesus more.
- Praise God for his provision in the past. Regularly thanking him for it will encourage us to trust him more for tomorrow.
- Do something that will only succeed with Jesus. Do something crazily ambitious that will only work if Jesus provides. That we couldn't do on our own. Like plant a church. Or 2. Or 3...
But, most of all:
- Depend on Jesus to make us more dependent on Jesus. There would be a great irony if we tried to become more dependent on Jesus in our own strength. So let's, above all, be praying that we wouldn't be a self-sufficient church (like the church in Laodicea) - but a church that is growing in our dependence on the 'ruler of God's creation' (v.14 again).
Thanks to Paul, Helen, Somerset, Simon, Richard, David and Anna for the above ideas. And to Jim for getting us asking that question!
