Tag Archives: struggle

Righteousness a Gift?

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It’s easy for us to think of salvation as being a free gift of grace, but righteousness is often a different story. Yet righteousness before God comes exclusively as a free gift from Him as well. Here’s how Paul puts it: “… those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17). Truly magnificent, isn’t it? But as wonderful as this is, it’s merely the starting point in our walk of faith.

The question is how the reality of God’s righteousness, having now become our own, plays out in the believer over the course of his life. What about our old nemesis: sin? How is it that God can allow our ongoing struggle with sin to exist right alongside the awesome position of righteousness we now have in Christ? The incredible gift of God’s grace has everything to do with it! In Christ, God has actually caused us to die to sin itself.

Where You Belong

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My child, I hear and answer your prayers. I give to all who open their hearts to Me to receive. I long to bless My children. I love you even in your struggles. Even when you sin. I continue to stretch out My hand to raise you up and bring you into My outstretched arms. don’t run from Me when you sin. Run to Me. I am your gracious Heavenly Father who longs to clothe you in righteousness and place the crown of life on your head. Come into the position of authority I have for you. Come home to Me, where you belong.

No Escaping it!

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As a matter of course, man without God is drawn into the world system made ever more powerful at the direction of demonic powers. Here we find those who have worked their way into positions of advantage (power), aiding and abetting the enslavement of their fellow men. Though the conflicts and challenges we experience in life may seem on the surface to be with people themselves, ultimately our struggle is against Satan himself as he goes about manipulating us through the world system he has developed and refined.

We dare not forget what Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12: “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” 

Now it’s not hard to see how such captivity can happen to those who have little or no knowledge of God.(Ephesians 4:19) But what about those of us who have come to know, love and serve God? What is the effect of this powerful world system on our lives? The truth is that its impact is clearly oppressive for us as well. So we would be foolish to think that we could remain untouched while living in a world infected by such sin.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

 

 

Watch out for Satan!

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Our difficulty in choosing God over self is complicated all the more by the presence of a powerful adversary. When God banished Satan from heaven, He sent him here. Have you ever asked yourself why God, who “knows our frame” and is “mindful that we are but dust,”(Psalm 103:14) would place us in a world controlled by Satan and his minions? Outside of God’s intervention, such a world leaves domination by Satan as the only reasonable prospect.

We don’t have a chance without God! Even with the power of God’s Spirit residing within, our ongoing struggle with self-will is greatly affected by the challenges Satan presents. So it’s critical that we understand Satan’s role in bringing about the domination of sin over people’s lives.

The enemy presents sin as good and pleasurable—concealing the bondage, fear and unhappiness it always brings. By its very nature, sin stirs up hope in the human heart. It’s a lot like the hope inspired by the promises Hitler made, which ultimately led to the loss of some fifty million lives in World War II. The Nazis offered the German people prosperity and future peace in return for allegiance to Hitler and his cause. But all along their hidden agenda was complete domination, not only of the world but of their lives as well. The destruction their collaboration ultimately caused is a graphic reminder of the consequences sin always brings in the end.

Excerpted from: Free from the Power of Sin: The Keys to Growing in God in Spite of Yourself

 

 

Self-Will Twisted

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The gift of self-interest has become twisted. What began in a more perfect world as a healthy motivation to support and enhance life has degenerated in this fallen world into a power struggle—man against his fellow man in an egotistical attempt to improve his standing in life.

Satan is well aware of this weakness in our nature. So he uses it to dominate man, taking him down the road to self-destruction in an endless cycle of immorality and greed.(Ephesians 4:19) The truth is that self-will can never be satisfied devoid of relationship with God, and it’s desperately sad that so many have been blinded to this reality.

Man’s first taste of the bitterness of self-will was experienced by Adam. The fall of man is a very sad beginning to human history, but is also interesting because it says so much about our nature. Many Christians view Adam as being a perfect man—someone very different from man as we know him today. The fact is he was a perfect man. He was created sinless in a sinless world, which is the reason God could inhabit his being so freely and completely.

Yet this raises a question as to what the true definition of human perfection actually is. I think Adam was human in all the ways we’ve seen man’s nature to be in the foregoing chapters. What perfected his humanity was his relationship with God, and the fact that he dwelt in fellowship with God in a sinless world.