Fighting the Good Fight

After spending the last several posts writing about the importance of the law of God, it is now time to acknowledge our struggles and failure to keep those laws perfectly. I have the tendency to beat myself up when I think about how often I fail to do the right thing. Sometimes I look at the way I interact with my husband and friends and I blush realizing that God sees that too. There are days and weeks where I have felt crippled underneath the weight of my sin, unable to climb out of the hole I have fallen so deeply in, becoming discouraged. While it’s good to acknowledge our shortcomings, we can’t wallow in them; we must take a stand with God against our sins and recognize our deep need of a Savior who conquered these sins for us.

In order to take a stand against the sin remaining in our lives we must be able to repeat God’s promises and victories to ourselves during our times of strife. The Letter from Paul to the Romans as a whole has made a huge impact on my life. When I began examining my life, questioning where I placed my hopes and realizing my need of a savior, my friends pointed me to Romans. As I read through Paul’s letter, the phrase, “the righteous shall live by faith,” echoed in my brain. Throughout the first chapter, I read of our tendency to suppress and ignore the truth and replace it with a love of self, as I continued reading I realized just how bleak the future was for me if I decided to continue living in the shackles of my sins. I began to realize the pointlessness in boasting in my own works because they would still fall short, and when I realized that I began to feel the weight of the problems of this world being lifted off my shoulders knowing that I have been justified in my faith, by the grace of God through Jesus’ sacrifice.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For 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. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8: 1-11

In our hearts we know that Christ is in us, and rest our faith in our salvation, but sometimes we mess up. When we mess up, is when the devil will swoop in and try to plant seeds of doubt in our hearts. The enemy will never come out and dangle something in our heads that we absolutely know to be false, Satan speaks in half truths. He looks for our insecurities and tries to find cracks in our foundations. When we mess up, the enemy whispers in our ears questions like, “are you really any different?” or “do you think God will love you even after all this?” To be able to fight the enemy of sin, we need to be able to say, “No, Christ paid for that,” and to be able to do that, we need to know and to be able to hold on to the promises that we have been given. This is why it is so important to read the Bible and to be able to remember scripture

Too often we let our failures define us instead of finding our worth in Christ in His victory over sin and darkness. We get so caught up keeping a running tally of our highest and lowest moments forgetting that our identity is not found in our own works, but at the foot of the Cross of Jesus who washed away our shortcomings. To be able the fight the good fight, we must keep the promises of our God close to our hearts, knowing that we are created new, we are redeemed, and we are spotless in His eyes thanks to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. Ephesians 6: 10-18

The Problem with Jealousy

Jealousy is a funny thing, it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. You can go from admiring a gift that someone has, to wishing you had that for yourself, to becoming irrationally bitter about your own circumstances. With Facebook and other social media platforms, it’s especially easy to get bogged down looking at how great everyone else’s life seems, forgetting that they probably don’t share everything that is going on in their world. It sets the battleground for spiritual warfare that lets the whispers of doubt sneak in through the cracks if we don’t hold on to the promises we were given.

I wrote last week about how lately, I have felt myself looking at other people’s lives and having trouble not only being genuinely happy for them, but struggling not to envy them. In doing so, I am disobeying my calling to love people and more importantly, I have realized that by doing this, I am ignoring the fact that God has given me the circumstances in my life for a reason. When I have walked through seasons of extreme stress and discomfort in the way my life looks, I have not always sought rest and comfort in the Lord, instead I have wasted my time I have looking upon those who aren’t struggling like I am and wonder what I’m doing wrong.

Last year, right after becoming a Christian, I hit one of these walls. As my other friends’ husbands were returning from Ranger School and reuniting with their wives, I had found out that Brendan’s timeline for coming home had just gotten extended again. I hated hearing them talk about being so close to seeing their husbands, and did everything in my power not to roll my eyes or make rude remarks, not even realizing that those thoughts were just as poisonous to my spirit as if I was to speak them. I was filled with a sharp bitterness, and I struggled to be happy for my friends and at a really low point, I even remember wishing that someone else’s husband would recycle so I wouldn't feel so alone. I became so focused on coveting the lives of other people that I neglected the miracle of the life that God had given me.

“When we lament about the apparent injustice of pain and suffering, how often do we forget that every good thing in this fallen world is wholly a gift of God’s mercy and grace? We think to question God when bridges fall but not to wonder at His grace that every bridge does not. Every fit of laughter, every delectable morsel of food, and every single smile is the result of his mercy and grace; he owes us none of it.” Matthew Chandler, The Explicit Gospel, p 30
When we covet the lives of other people, we are basically throwing it in God’s face that what He has already given us isn't enough, when in fact He was not obligated to give us life at all. He has created our life and has planned its ups and downs for how He sees fit to glorify himself. As I realized how jealous I was becoming, I realized how pointless it was for me to even be jealous and began to shift my focus to drawing closer to the Lord. During this time, I couldn't help but think of all of the time I had wasted feeling sorry for myself, drowning in jealousy and self-pity, yearning for things of this world which would only satisfy me briefly and which did nothing but estrange me from the God who had mercifully saved me from a life of darkness.

Lately I have spent a lot of time praying over and reading His Commandments to us, and realized just how childlike I actually am. Parents don’t give their children rules to “ruin their fun” or not let them eat marshmallows for breakfast to be mean, they are doing it so that their kids are safe and healthy. In a much larger way, God does not give us these rules to follow to put us in shackles, but to free us from the constraints of a selfish unfulfilled life and lead us down the path to salvation and grace. With that in mind, there is nothing this earth could I possibly covet that is a greater gift, and I am left with nothing to desire except eternity with God.