Struggling Toward Holiness…

 

I have not had the rule which I ought to have had over my own spirit, which has therefore been like a city broken into and left without walls. (Proverbs 25:28)

How many different ways are there, Lord, for sin to enter into the spirit and corrupt us? Before we were redeemed, while we were yet a slave to sin, it ruled over us. That bondage was absolute and unyielding; You make that very clear in Your Word. In presenting this dichotomy, Paul said to the Romans in Romans 6 verse 15,

"What then? Shall we sin then because we are not under Law but under Grace?  Do you not know that to whom you present your sales slaves to obey you are that one's slaves you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience leading to righteousness?"

There is no middle state presented here. There is no kind of obedience and kind of disobedient.  What Paul is saying is that those who are redeemed characteristically demonstrate that obedience by obeying God. Those who are not redeemed characteristically demonstrate that unredeemed state with disobedience.

 

But beyond that, we must deal with the weakness of the flesh as it shows itself in the redeemed persons everyday life. Certainly, God does not expect His people to live lines of un-sinning perfection.  God is neither unreasonable nor stupid. This sets Him apart from many preachers!

 

The work that Christ accomplished was finished at Calvary, finished once and for all. You and I need to add nothing to it to please God any further.  However, this truth does not let us off the hook with regard to the matter of obedience in submission to the command of God as it is revealed in His scripture.

 

The weakness that is a natural part, a left over part of the flesh that remains with us after redemption, has many ways to plague us.  As Paul observed in Romans six there are numerous ways for sin to enter "our spirit" and call us down to into disobedience. It is important to note that Paul does not intend to portray this "sin" as something external to us. 

 

Rather, we need to remember that he is simply underscoring the truth that, once we are redeemed, God creates in us a new nature! But yet, we have within us the remnants of the old nature. That old nature seeks to draw us to dishonor our Lord. Our flesh, for that is what the Scripture calls these remnants, seeks to lead us to do that which God desires us not to do.  It is aided and abetted by two external sources; the world and the devil.

 

Our resource in this is only, ONLY the Word of God, Prayer and the Armor of God.  It can be nothing else.  We have hope in nothing but these things for our warfare is not a warfare that can be waged in any way other realm other than the spiritual.  If we think that it can be, if we fancy ourselves to be able to fight it in the natural world, we fall into the hands of our enemies.  David did that numerous times. He found himself consumed with the desire to strike back at his enemies using his own power. And thus found himself worse off than when he started. We must believe what God says! We must claim to the truth that is only our heavenly Father that can fight our battles for us.

 

Sometimes, this is easy for us to see and to understand because those battles are far beyond our capacity to wage.  But sadly, many times those battles are conducted in our minds and in our hearts. And those battles go on for a long, long time. We fight them over and over and over again. But they are just as, if not more, unproductive and damaging as the actual battles themselves. We need to learn, as the old saying goes, to "let go and let God". That may be an euphemism, but in this case it really does say what needs to be said.

 

It does us no good whatsoever to "stop fighting" on the outside while we still rage against the thing on the inside. Remember what our Lord Jesus said in the book of Matthew;

"...If we look upon a woman to lost we've already committed adultery with her and her heart?" (Paraphrase). 

Does that not also apply to many of the other destructive things, sinful things that we experience and do?

 

If they are already going on in our head, even if we don't do them on the outside, or have stopped doing them on the outside, if we are still struggling with them on the inside - the matter is still not closed between us and God. Don't get me wrong, struggling toward purity is a very, very good thing! But let's not convince ourselves that we have accomplished what we have not yet accomplished. Likewise, let's not delude ourselves that we are entitled to feel things that we are not entitled to feel! While it is true that we are human and that we are not yet what we will one day be (glory to God, we have much to look forward to) we must still grapple with the command of God "be ye holy as I am holy".