I'll be mowing the lawn and pulling weeds this morning. Mowing the yard is not a big deal to me. Asher hops up on "the tractor" as he calls it and we have a big time cutting the grass. The thing I hate is pulling weeds. That is misery. I usually do a terrible job of it too because I hate it so much.
Pulling weeds is a lot like the sanctification process. God is working to rid our lives of sin. That's what sanctification is. Each day and week that goes by we must constantly be watching and be aware of ways in which our natural desires lead us away from God toward a self-centered self-dependent way of life. That is where sin comes from. The moment we decide we do not want to live in dependence upon and obedient to God, we sin. That is what happened in the garden. The selling point on the apple was that Adam and Eve would be gods meaning they would no longer be dependent on the God.
As we grow closer to God, we will become more and more aware of the sin that so easily entangles us and causes us to stumble. At the start of our journey with God we begin to remove sins that are easily detected. Over time those big visible sins may come back, but they are easily seen and removed. Over time the sins of the mind, heart, and attitude become visible to us. Those are the more difficult sins to realize and repent of. The person that can recognize those sins is a mature believer.
Interestingly, the more you grow in your faith and get closer to God the more sin you will actually see in your life. D.A. Carson writes, "genuinely righteous people invariably become more aware of their personal guilt and need for forgiveness than those who have become so foul and hard they cannot detect their own shame." (For the Love of God : A Daily Companion for Discovering the Riches of God's Word. Volume 1, July 2). Each day you will repent of sin just as I regularly have to pull weeds from my yard. The problem with sin and weeds is that they both keep coming back. When you are walking closely with God, you will see your sin more clearly. That means that the closer you are to God the further you will feel.
In time you will even see that some of the good you are doing comes from a heart of sin. Isaiah 64:6 "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags". Our desire to look spiritual, to get noticed and appreciated, or to feel important and have our egos stroked can inspire us to do good. But that good is a way for us to be praised like a god. With that attitude we will be walking the same path of Adam and Eve. It is a path of sin.
So what can we do. Is there any hope. Romans 7:24-8:2 "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. 1Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death."
Our only hope is Jesus. The Gospel truth is that in Christ we are forgiven not because we earned it or because we can live up to what we've been given. We are forgiven and loved by God by grace through faith.
Live by faith and the Holy Spirit will work in and through you to weed out that sin. But don't get discouraged with your feelings. The closer you are to God the more aware of your sin you will be, which might lead you to feel further from Him. Remember that in Christ you are in God and God is in you. You are not far from Him nor is He far from you. He is in you and with you and for you!
No comments:
Post a Comment