Discernment gives you the ability to both appreciate the subtle beauty of a Renoir and spot a fake.

Here is the offense: "Apart from me, you can do nothing." Apart from Jesus, our leaves will turn yellow and fall off . Apart from Jesus, the fruit we bear will be watery and acidic, unfit for anything. Apart from Jesus, we will wither up and die . . . The problem is our obsession with ourselves.

When you read the context of Jesus' words, you'll realize that Jesus isn't calling us to shoulder an extra burden; He is calling us to exchange a heavy burden for a lighter one. He is calling us to take His yoke because it is easier and lighter than the one we are presently carrying.

Before we can be grafted into Him, we must be stripped of our self-sufficiency and ego.

By leaving the yoke of their Master, they have become prey for the wild, unpredictable world around them . . . We must come to Him to be tamed.

He frees us from our burdens in the most unexpected way: He frees us by calling us to rely less on ourselves and more on Him. He frees us by calling us to humility.

Humility is knowing where we came from and who our people are. Humility is understanding that without God we are nothing . . . Or as . . . Andrew Murray writes in his classic book Humility, "Humility is simply acknowledging the truth of [our] position as creature and yielding to God His place.

When we disregard our natural human limitations, we set ourselves in God's place.

As long as we refuse to accept that our pride is the source of our unrest, we will continue to wither on the vine. "Humility, that low, sweet root / From which all heavenly virtues shoot." —Thomas Moore

Your life has intrinsic value, not simply because of who you are as an individual, but because of who He is as your God.