HOW CAN CHRISTIANS RISE ABOVE THE THINGS THAT TRY TO DISCOURAGE US?
BIBLE PASSAGE:
My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart.
(Psalm 7:10)
MEDITATION:
Do you ever feel there is some sin in your life that you just can’t eliminate?
At times, do you feel like Paul, who just couldn’t understand his own actions?
I do not understand what I do.
For what I want to do I do not do,
but what I hate, I do.
(Romans 7:15)
Paul’s failures were causing him to struggle
with forgiving himself for his sins against God.
What a wretched man I am!
Who will rescue me from this
body that is subject to death?
(Romans 7:24)
When we look at Paul’s struggle with sin,
we see a man with a heart (desire) to please God.
For I know that good itself does not
dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.
For I have the desire to do what is
good, but I cannot carry it out.
(Romans 7:18)
Even though he had a desire to please God, sin was a constant and strong
threat to Paul’s hope of avoiding the things that would cause him to feel
bad about himself. Like many of us, Paul’s disobedience made him feel
worthless and despicable.
We don’t know the details of his struggles with sin and disobedience to
God, but we can see that they were real, and he knew it. Before Paul’s
conversion, some things he was doing may not have seemed like a big
deal, but after he was transformed, the Lord may have revealed to him
the dirtiness and sinfulness of those things. He does that with us, right?
We can relate, can’t we? In the past, we may have created some habits
in our own lives that didn’t seem like rebellion and sin. But as we mature
in following Jesus, God may reveal to us that we need to eliminate those
things from our lives.
We may have selfish attitudes which can cause us to overlook God’s
command to, “consider others ahead of ourselves”.
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.
Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
not looking to your own interests but each of you
to the interests of others.
(Philippians 2:3-4)
We may have developed some habits that are outside the boundaries
of God’s expectations for followers of His Son. Our habits might be
so deeply ingrained within us that we have allowed Satan to convince
us to ‘justify’ our actions as being okay.
Unfortunately, we may be allowing the social norms and our selfishness to
influence us more than God’s expectations of us. Why would we do that?
Because habits can be difficult to break, especially when we enjoy them.
And we aren’t going to get any favorable help from Satan, are we? The
evil one wants us to believe that we can continue with our habits if we
do them in moderation.
If we have allowed Satan to invade our thoughts and caused us to believe
that there are different levels of sin (and some levels are permissible), then
we need to ask ourselves if God commandments are definitive, or does He
allow us some ‘wiggle room’ for continuing the things He considers as sin.
Paul realized the power and attraction of sin in his life. He didn’t try to
justify his actions, but admitted that sin was still living in him and was
ready to seize control whenever he let down his guard.
For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not
want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not
want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in
me that does it. So I find this law at work: Although I want
to do good, evil is right there with me.
(Romans 7:19-21)
It sounds like Paul was in a hopeless situation, doesn’t it? It appears he was
destined to continue displeasing the Lord and living out his life on earth as a
person of sinful disobedience. But the good news is, Paul knew how he could
be rescued from his struggles.
Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ
our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s
law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
(Romans 7:25)
Paul had a ‘heart’ that loved the Lord and wanted to please Him. He knew
that when the Lord was in control, he would be successful with obedience,
but when he allowed his sinful nature to overpower him, disobedience was
inevitable.
In addition, Paul knew how disobedience could cause him to have feelings
of worthlessness and low self-esteem. These bad feelings about himself
were real and caused him to struggle with forgiving himself, even though
God has promised to forgive our sins when we confess them to Him, ask
for His forgiveness and repent (strive to avoid them in the future).
ACTION:
Paul gives us a living example of the struggles Christians can have
with sin’s attempts to control their lives. For every Christian, it is
a battle that originates in our mind, and it’s real.
Whenever we are in a battle, we have three options:
– we can keep on fighting,
– we can seek reinforcements,
– or, we can surrender to our foe
Some give up the fight and say, “This is just who I am”. That is a lie
from hell itself! As a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden,
we have a ‘sin nature’, but our Creator has given us ‘free choice’ so
we can have a desire to please Him regardless of the obstacles that
try to discourage us.
Our first line of defense is to determine our heart’s desires. It’s up to us
to decide which direction our heart will take. Either we will continue to
nourish our desire to please the Lord, or we will suppress that desire and
surrender to the power of sin.
Read again how Paul fought the same battles we have
and how he sought the power of the Lord to rescue him.
Pray,
“Heavenly Father, too often I can relate to the struggles
Paul experienced with his desire to please You, and the
battle he had with the things that tempted him to acts of
disobedience. When I read about Paul, I can sense his
heart to obey You and I believe I have that same desire.
At the same time, I see how he struggled with temptations
to be disobedient, and how he had trouble forgiving himself
whenever he yielded to his sinful nature. Lord that describes
me too, so I plead with You to rescue me as You did Paul,
so that instead of feeling worthless and discouraged, I too
can become a useful servant of Yours, and enjoy a close
relationship and fellowship with You.”
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