What is the Christian life?
Is it constant easy victory? Is
it simple perfectionism? Or maybe
painless grace filled living?
Well, If you answered “yes” to the above questions, I might
wonder if you are telling the truth, if you are out of your mind, or even if
you are living the Christian life at all.
I recently read an article, which claimed that the majority of people
feel like they are failures; I know I do, and I believe this is also true for
other people.
As we look at the Bible and the example of men and women who
have come before us, we notice that living as a follower of Christ is often
difficult. Why is this? Why do we often feel like it is such a
struggle? Because living by the Spirit
is contrary to what our sinful flesh wants so badly (Romans 7; Galatians 5). When we walk with God, we realize that our
old fleshly nature is filthy, dirty, and vial.
Hopefully, when you are reading this you can take a big sigh
of relief, in realization that struggling to live the Christian life is shared
experience among the people of God.
Tenth Avenue North has a new song called, “The Struggle,”
and I believe this song does a great job of describing the nature of our
Christian condition. The first verse
states that in our nature we want and love the wrong things.
There's a wreckage, there's a fire, There's a weakness in my love, There's
a hunger I can't control, Lord I falter and I fall down, Then I hold on to the
chains you broke, When You came down and saved my soulSave my soul
The reason we feel this constant struggle is because we are
constantly at war within ourselves. On
the one hand we have the Holy righteous God living within us (Colossians 1:27;
Galatians 2:20), but on the other hand we have our sinful fallen and decaying nature
that has affections for the things that God hates (Galatians 5:17).
The second verse of the song, however gives us a little more
hope, and praises Yahweh, saying we are free to struggle! (Huh? Read
carefully)
Hallelujah, We are free to struggle, We're not struggling to be free, Your
blood bought and makes us children, So children drop your chains and sing
It is OK, and common to struggle! Struggling, fighting against temptations, and
realizing that we are extremely broken are not wrong! The wonderful thing about our condition,
however, is that our God has given us freedom from giving into to the decaying
flesh’s desires (Galatians 5:1, Galatians 5:13-18).
In His grace and mercy He has set us free from our chains, so that thou
we may struggle, we mustn't give in. And
not only can we say “no” to sin, but now we can walk with Him and by His Spirit
(Galatians 5:16)!
We can stand with all of humanity and know that we all sin and all fall short of God’s expectations, and it is only by God’s grace
and in Christ that we can be with Him (Romans 3:23). Knowing this gives us corporate solidarity
between all humanity and a message of hope to offer to people who struggle and
feel like they never measure up.
So what is the Christian life? It’s a struggle. So I will sing joyfully with my brothers and
sisters, “Hallelujah, We are free to
struggle, We're not struggling to be free, Your blood bought and makes us children,
So children drop your chains and sing!”
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“13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So
I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For
the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is
contrary to the flesh. They
are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you
want. 18 But
if you are led by the Spirit, you
are not under the law” (Galatians 5:13-18, NIV).
~Trev
~Trev
