The perimeter of sin

God is the one who enables you both to want and to actually live out his good purposes. (Philippians 2:13) 

When God enables us, he makes us able, giving us the power or ability, as well as the means by which to live holy and upright lives. Consider who is doing the enabling and we might just begin to see our course of action as different than what we might have originally believed it ever could be. On one hand, we work hard to obtain or realize a goal, without anyone really helping us realize that goal. On the other hand, when someone comes alongside, bringing talents we don't possess and apply those talents toward the end goal, we might just realize the project comes to fruition quicker and easier than if we struggled to do it alone. There is something about being enabled to do something which gives us a certain freedom or liberty to pursue it with a greater passion and purpose, isn't there?

Imagine your spiritual goals. You should have some, you know! If you don't, then maybe that is the place to start - with an honest conversation with God about what it is in your life that requires some adjustment in order to be a better example of his love and grace. Spiritual goals may seem a little lofty at first - like wanting to be free of some life-dominating sin or point of consistent compromise in your life. You might not imagine yourself fully "free" of those things, but you can "hope" there might be a point when you would be out from under their weight. At first, the impossibility of "being on the other side" of the habit, sinful pattern, or consistent compromise seems a little bit like you might never be "truly free", but you know scripture declares that you are not only "set free" but being continually "renewed" in that pattern of being "set free". This is referred to in two terms in theological circles: Salvation and Sanctification. Salvation makes you free (you are saved out of whatever it is you were in bondage to). Sanctification makes you continually free (helping you to live free of those bonds over and over again until you stop returning to the place of your bondage completely).

An elephant can be chained to the immediate ten-foot radius around a peg and a chain attached to his rear leg. For a while, he will pull and pull at that staked chain to attempt to be free. In time he will come to think his "freedom" only consists of the ten-foot radius around that pegged chain. In a while, he could even be unlocked from that chain, and he wouldn't move out of that area. Why? He has developed the pattern of bondage. He has accepted his confined place and no longer believes he can escape it. Sin is kind of like that in our lives - for a long time we might resist the hold it has on us and even chafe against it a little. Given enough struggling to be "free" of that sin and we might just come to the place we give up on ever being free. At salvation, the moment we say "yes" to Jesus, the chain is loosed, and the shackle is removed. If we only focus on the thing which held us in bondage for so long, we may never explore the freedom outside of that ten-foot radius! We will believe we are still bound - but if we get outside of that radius even just a little, we begin to experience life as it should be - free and full of good things God intends for us to enjoy fully.

God's plan is to remove the shackles AND the peg that held us in bondage. The evidence of bondage is long gone, but sometimes we continue to remember the peg and shackles as being there, making it almost impossible to escape 'sin's radius'. Remember, he not only 'unshackles' us, but he removes every trace of the thing that held us in the perimeter of sin. Just sayin!