For much of my life as a Christian, there have been efforts toward killing sin and progressing in righteousness.  How I’ve pursued this though, has been marked by good intentions, but bad execution.  I would look at my life and see something that I knew was sinful or out of place with God’s character and say, ok, I need to work on that.  I need to stop doing that, or maybe, I need to start doing this, etc.  So I would pray about it, I would maybe set up some boundaries, and maybe get some accountability from others around it.  It all sounds good, right?  It might work for a time, but it would never last, especially with sin that was truly a struggle for me.

In Romans 7:7-8 it says “I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”  But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness.” So by focusing on my sin “problem”, and telling myself not to do something anymore, only created in me a law that created in me the desire for that thing all the more.  This is our sin nature, this is the depth of our depravity, and what Jesus came to save us from.  We often think of salvation in this way – that Jesus saved us from ourselves, saved us from sin, and saved us from hell/judgment.  I never mean to make light of this, because without Jesus breaking the bondage of sin, we would have no hope – but I want to exhort all of us, that the greatest part of our salvation was not in our being saved “from” things, but in being saved “to” Someone, namely God.

1 Peter 3:18 – “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God”

Romans 8:3-6 – “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

In God’s Word, we’ll see a lot of imagery that talks about how we should set the mind on the Spirit (Rom 8), setting our minds on the things of God (Matt 16/Mark 8), setting our minds on things above (Col 3:2), put on the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 13), put on Christ (Gal 3), put on the new self (Eph 4).  All of this speaks to what it means to walk not in our flesh, but walk by faith, walk in the Spirit of God to seek Him in all things.  In looking to Jesus in this way, the laws of God will no longer be a burden to bear, but the overflow of our fellowship with Jesus.  So all of the things I ought to do, like read my Bible, pray, avoid temptation, seek forgiveness, love/serve others sacrificially, are no longer checkboxes I have to complete, but the result of my embracing my righteousness in Jesus, and pursuing greater fellowship with Him.  How freeing is that?  There are not many things to do, there is only one – Look to Jesus.  I hope this is as much of an encouragement to you today, as it is to me.  We are all prone to wander, helpless apart from Christ, but He is near to us, desirous for us to go to Him for our good and His glory.

Grace and Peace,

Adam