The objection expresses man's basic drive to be self-sufficient, independent of God and able to take care of himself in life's deepest problems.  He fears that he will lose his personal identity and freedom.  He has an exaggerated idea of his own ability and is blind to his needs and sin,

 INITIAL CHALLENGE

"There is something inside each one of us that wants to be like James Bond, utterly self-sufficient.  But Christians are honest.  They know that they need strength for living from beyond themselves.  Everyone does this in practice-cigarettes, beer, sex, drugs, another person.  But they are not honest enough to admit it or to see that all these human crutches will break sooner or later.  Only the Christian's crutch', Jesus Christ, will last forever."

 THE BIBLICAL APPROACH

 Man without God is incomplete

 God made us to function on all levels of our personality-body, mind and spirit.  In fact man without God is "not all there".  Man was made with a spiritual side to his nature for contact with God and the spiritual world, 1 Thess, 5: 23.  But for so many this side of their nature is ignored in the pressure of life, as was done by the rich fool in Jesus’ parable Luke 12:16-2l.. The reason for this is that they are "dead towards God"; the spiritual aspect of their personalities is switched off by sin and rebellion.  Ephesians 2:       1-3.  The man who says he can do without God is only two thirds alive, that is sub-normal so far as God's plan for us is concerned.

 Man's Initial rebellion

 From the beginning man has been trying to get away from God and find sufficiency and all the answers in himself.  In Genesis chapter three, Eve's temptation was first to cut herself loose from any limitations God might have set by forbidding her to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This was to enable her to "be like God, knowing good and evil", independent and self-sufficient.

 Jesus Christ depended totally on God

 The one perfect human being, Jesus Christ, depended on God more than anyone else.  As the one filled with dynamic goodness, He should have been totally self-sufficient.  Yet He depended on God completely.  "The Son can do nothing of His own accord." John 5: 19. To trust in God like this is not the sign of a personality cripple, but makes us alive in all areas of our being, making us more and more like Jesus Christ.

TURNING THE TABLES

 "Let me show you how you can be a complete person, fully alive to God at every level." Continue into the Four Spiritual Laws showing God's love, man's need and God's provision in Jesus Christ for our failure.