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Scripture teaches it is God Himself and not the believer, who causes His will to be maintained in his life; which means it is also God Himself who carries out the doing of His will—by the life of the believer (Phil 2:13), through His guidance (Psa 37:23; Prov 3:6).

When God’s Word admonishes to do or be something, I like interpreting this with the understanding that it is God Himself who is performing the doing of it—but using our minds and bodies, e.g., when others “see your good works,” which “glorify your Father,” (Matt 5:16) it is the believer they see, but it is the Father who is working (through His Son and Their Spirit).

For example, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:16) does not design the intention of self-made holiness, or self-made righteousness for that matter, but intends the assumption that this will be present within you, since Christ is in you (from whom only it originates then emanates from the believer). Therefore, we depend not on self to produce but to be, “partakers of the (His) divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4).
-NC

I read this and this is what I thought about....

Independence from God...can only lead to trouble! I would rather be completely depended on God because I believe and have come to understand that God created "rules" with the intention of saving us a lot of pain and heartache. When we follow God's Word, we are saving ourselves from a lot of pain. The world makes the word "independence" seem SO attractive to people, but independence can lead a person away from God and create a world worth of problems for someone.

Paloma wrote:I read this and this is what I thought about....

Independence from God...can only lead to trouble! I would rather be completely depended on God because I believe and have come to understand that God created "rules" with the intention of saving us a lot of pain and heartache. When we follow God's Word, we are saving ourselves from a lot of pain. The world makes the word "independence" seem SO attractive to people, but independence can lead a person away from God and create a world worth of problems for someone.

Hi Paloma and I like your reply! Thanks and God's blessings to your Family!

Amen, and when I saw the title of your post, that was my first thought: How independence can seem very alluring, and even good, but in truth it only leads people away from God. Appearances are deceiving, and I think that many Christians face this problem of "Dependence vs. Independence", or the Word of God vs. the world's mentality. This is why I believe that the Word of God is so important. If we don't read the Word of God, we can't properly protect ourselves against the many stumbling rocks that may come our way.