Sin can't come barging in the door of your mind because we're prepared for that. We've barred the doors and shut the windows and are looking for a dragon to come flying down with teeth bared and flame roaring. We don't think about the basement. We forget that the dragon is often little more than a distraction while the nature still attached to us raises the knife.
The wound cuts deep and hurts more when we see the blade -covered in our blood- being held by our own hand. We rail against it, we mourn and weep and forget that we don't have to. We don't have to. We are free if we would only realize it. Sin shouts so loud and so much that it seems imposing but it's not, it's not. We can say no.
It seems so easy and trust me I know that it's harder in the moment but believe me when I say that you can just say no. When temptation comes in the dark times, the alone times, the weak times, you can refuse; but we must be prepared. We have to soak our lives in prayer, we have to know the Word, we must prepare.
This isn't a fight about bravado or glory, it's survival. We must be brave but in very real sense we must be cowards. We have to cower behind the shield of faith because to walk blithely into battle as if we have any strength of our own is a sure recipe for death. It's not about proving you can drink the poison and survive; better to not drink it at all.
I don't know about you but I've never understood sin. From our perspective now it makes absolutely no sense. Why do we, why do I keep doing these things? I know better, we all do, and yet we all find our way back to guilt back to shame and back to regret. Paul said it best:
"For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God; through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin."
(Romans 7:14-25)
Sin is a cancer and an assassin. In the life of a believer it is not often the firestorm that threatens the home, more often it's the cracking foundation or the dripping pipe or the leaking gas; a slower quieter death. I hate sin. More than I used to less than I should. When I look up and see that I've screwed up AGAIN I am both despondent and enraged. I cannot undo no matter how much I might wish it and there is more failure there than in any physical thing that can be retried or tackled again.
God is good. He is so good. I am a wretch, living in a body of death and clinging to His robe for mercy. And He loves me.
I'm not sure you heard that.
He doesn't just -understand- me, He doesn't only -pity- me, He more than just -comforts- me. He LOVES me! He loves us all, the whole smelly rotten putrid lot of us! He loves us and He paid the price so high knowing full well that we would falter and fail and rebel and turn our backs to Him again and again and again before the end. He knew every horrid thing you would do after He saved you before He saved you. He loves us.
He loves us.
He loves me.
amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment