Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. (Romans 8:5 MSG) Our own moral muscle isn't all that strong - we go around trying to rely upon it to keep us on the straight and narrow far too often, then wonder why we didn't do very well resisting temptation. The futility of using our own moral compass all the time isn't only foolish, it is dangerous. We can easily have our moral compass lose its 'true north', finding ourselves trusting in a direction that isn't very reliable at all. The only reliable 'compass' is the Spirit of God who lives within us. We can trust his direction over and over again - it isn't ever going to veer from 'true north'. We don't need to worry that he will lead us into sin or compromise because he is always focused on righteousness. Right choices may seem hard for us at times, but wrong ones are often because we...
I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world’s. Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep his commandments. (I John 2:1-3 MSG) I have said this before, but it bears repeating - we ALL sin - it isn't so much the 'if' we sin as much as 'when' we sin. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, stands at the ready for the 'when' moments as much as he does at any other time in our lives. The 'sin problem' we all have is that we are born with a nature that is 'bent toward' sin and heeds its call way too frequently. The 'sin solution' we all have access to is Christ's presence within us to both know and keep his commands, not simply through our own willpower, but with his tremendous power tha...