Despite the best of intentions?

Despite the best of intentions!

“Not today, I won’t give pride any place in my thoughts,” I tell myself only to find at day’s end I missed that mark by a mile!  “I won’t let discouragement overtake faith,” I promise myself only to hear complaints spilling from my lips again.  The world, the flesh, and the Devil are ever present, aren’t they?  People, problems, and pre-occupation with ourselves conspire together to keep us from the high and holy calling given to us in Christ Jesus.  Too many times, I must join with Paul in exclaiming: "O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? " (Romans 7:24, KJV)

Do you find yourself torn between two worlds – one of the Spirit, one of the old sinful nature? 

Knowing ourselves, especially if we refuse to hide behind excuses or blame others for our own choices, can be painful.  It is so much easier to pretend that our sins are not so bad, that our temper is ‘their’ fault, that our failure to trust God is not a real problem;  than it is to admit that what we do is sin, period. Freedom is found in looking into the mirror and admitting, "It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me." (Romans 7:21-23, NLT)

So, do we make a truce with that disobedience? Should we choose to stay as we are,  full of good intentions, but falling far short of them? Is this passage I’ve quoted giving us a pass from growing into the beauty of Christ?  Some seem to think so. They ‘sin and grin.’ They remain infantile in faith and practice, slaves to the sinful nature. Christ, our Lord, calls us to grow up in Him, to live in a way that reflects the transformational power of His Spirit, Who lives in us. 

How do we do that? Guilt does not work. Rigid self-regulation will not work, either. The Bible says that "These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence." (Colossians 2:22-24, NIV)  Religion’s wreckage surrounds us!  If we attempt to become godly using human techniques  we will most likely either slip into hypocrisy (out of touch with our own reality) or just give up and walk away.

The paradox is that holiness is found in authenticity. Yes, we see our sins without excuse, own them with profound sorrow.  But we also see, in faith, beyond our sin to Christ, Who loves us even as He knows every what, why, and where of our lives.  Romans 7, full of the misery of failure, is not the last word.  "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." (Romans 8:1-4, NIV)

Guilt is real and serves a purpose.  It is not to drive us to better resolve or deeper self-hatred.  It is to bring us to the end of our own attempts to please God, to declare spiritual bankruptcy, and to live in the amazing, undeserved, yet freely granted, grace of God.  We can never exhaust His grace which is deeper than the pit we dig for ourselves, wider than the gap between our intention and our practice, greater than our guilt.  God’s grace really is amazing. "For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11, NKJV)

Today, when you fail, don’t pretend, excuse, or blame.  Confess!  But, make it a full confession – of your sinfulness and of His gift of holiness.  Take what He offers freely to you though at great cost to Himself.  You will find victory over sin precisely at the intersection of your failure and His grace. 

I love this passage and hope you do, too. "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding." (Ephesians 1:3-8, NIV)