Monday, March 14, 2016

Saved From The Penalty of Sin, But Still Struggling With Sin

My Utmost For His Highest
 
…you are that one’s slaves whom you obey… —Romans 6:16
 
“The first thing I must be willing to admit when I begin to examine what controls and dominates me is that I am the one responsible for having yielded myself to whatever it may be. If I am a slave to myself, I am to blame because somewhere in the past I yielded to myself. Likewise, if I obey God I do so because at some point in my life I yielded myself to Him. […] yield for one second to anything in the nature of lust, and although you may hate yourself for having yielded, you become enslaved to that thing. (Remember what lust is— “I must have it now,” whether it is the lust of the flesh or the lust of the mind.) No release or escape from it will ever come from any human power, but only through the power of redemption. […] yielding to Jesus will break every kind of slavery in any person’s life.”  CHAMBERS
 
(Luke 4:18) “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free,”  When you read the Bible, it is always important to remember that it is a Spiritual book. Did I just hear a “duh!”? My point is that Jesus came to do a spiritual work, although He often healed the physically sick and fed the hungry.  Before we were born again, we were hopelessly prisoner to sin.  We were blind to the Truth.  We were oppressed.  But Jesus set us free.  That is why Paul could be locked in a jail cell and still be free.  There is a greater story in this world.  It is a spiritual story and can only be understood by those whose eyes have been opened .. who have been set free.  (2 Corinthians 4:4) “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
 
OK, to the point.  You and I both know that even though we have been set free, we have the capacity and perhaps the inclination to continue to yield to those things from which we have been set free.  Like a moth to a flame, we are drawn to them.  Our old nature has been defeated, but can be and often is, still an influence.  We do not live sinless lives once we are born again, but our lives are changed forever.  Day by day we are being conformed to the image of our Lord.  Every day we are faced with choices … choices to yield to the old nature … but we don’t have to.   (1 Corinthians 10:13)  We face temptations to sin just like everyone else.  But God, who is faithful, has provided a way to resist the temptation. (Psalm 119:11, Joshua 1:8)  It’s the Word of God.  The solution to our spiritual problem of sin is spiritual.  Did I just hear another “duh!”?  Sounds simple enough, but, as you well know, it’s not so easy in the doing.  You cannot resist sin by will power now, any more than you could before you were born again.  It is a spiritual battle that must be fought with spiritual weapons. But if you still think you can go into battle, unarmed, you are naïve, in trouble and you are certain to fail.  ELGIN

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