Holding back?

Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires. Do not let any part of your body become an instrument of evil to serve sin. Instead, give yourselves completely to God, for you were dead, but now you have new life. So use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace. (Romans 6:12-14)

The command is to 'not let sin control the way we live' - the action on our part is to not give in to sinful desires. Can our desires actually change over time? Yes, both physically and spiritually. We might not like a particular food as a child but find ourselves enjoying it as an adult. What happened? Our desires changed. In much the same way, a desire that led to us taking some action that led to sin in our lives can change. How? We get into the Word of God, allow him to change our heart, and the mind's desires will follow!

Give yourself completely to God. What does that actually look like on a daily basis? It could be we spend a little less time on the tablet randomly searching social media feeds, giving that time instead to exploring what God wants to teach us through his Word. It might mean we spend time with others instead of always being on the go. It might also mean we just get quiet before God and listen to what he wants to say to us. God has likely been showing us how to 'give ourselves completely to him', but we haven't been hearing what he's been saying.

Use your whole body as an instrument to do what is right for the glory of God. That is a pretty practical instruction, isn't it? Take your thoughts, give them to God. Allow your emotions to be settled by God. Use your talents as God directs you. Your whole body - nothing left out. This may be the rubbing point for many of us all because we want some 'small part' of our lives to be 'our own'. We don't want to have to give it over to God. The good news is that you don't 'have to' give it over, but if you choose to give it over, great things are about to happen! We won't know what those might be until we determine to let go of whatever it is we are holding back. Just sayin!

Intentional or Actual

But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time. It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge. I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (Romans 7:17-25)

The truth is - we all need something more. We know what is right, but we somehow keep doing what is wrong. I like the way Paul puts it - sin keeps sabotaging our best intentions. Sabotage is just an underhanded interference from some force. When Paul says sin keeps sabotaging our best intentions he is simply stating there is some "interfering" force which makes our "best intentions" a little feeble at best. Maybe the most telling point in this statement is the idea of sin counteracting our intentions. Intentions are nothing more than mental determination - they aren't really totally connected to the heart and often not connected to the spirit. We make all kinds of "mental determinations" in life - the truth is that we actually act on very few! The point - "...I obviously need help!" Truer words could not be spoken! We don't have what it takes - this is why we keep failing! We make all kinds of mental commitments - but these commitments can get easily misplaced or sidetracked when something else takes over that space in our minds. We can only "think" so much about a commitment we have made. Use will-power to avoid the chocolate bar in the refrigerator and you will find you have made not much more than a mental commitment. You spend so much time thinking about the chocolate bar, but thinking about the chocolate bar doesn't keep you from desiring it! The problem with mental determination is the "space" that determination must occupy in order to be marginally effectual in our lives. I have found I get distracted pretty easily - so mental determination is not the best way to "fix my fix".

Our decisions don't result in the actions we hoped for because of some "internal" influence "comes along" and distracts us from our commitment to our decisions! Tell me you haven't been on this trip yourself! You have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating: The loudest voice gets our attention the quickest. The problem is that God's voice is still and small - oftentimes quieter than that 'loudest voice' we are listening to right now! So, if we are to listen to the right voice, we need to learn where it is we hear it the best - I assure you it is not in our mind! Our mind is one mess of a jumbled up bunch of voices - sorting these out takes some work! Our heart, on the other hand, is quite closely connected to our spirit, so the best place to hear God's voice is when we draw near to him in our heart and allow him to enter into our spirit. We don't find answers to our failures in any better source than in his presence. Failure is just an open door to bring us to a place where we move from our minds into our hearts and spirit. Somehow failure gets us out of the clouds - there is not as much attention turned toward the mess in our minds, because we find ourselves humbled and hurting. This is the place we end our 'intentions' and God begins his 'work'. Humbled hearts and hurting souls are his business! 

He delights in taking the pieces we are left with and putting them back together again. The thing is - he doesn't put them together in quite the same order again, though! We tried putting the pieces together OUR way - each time finding ourselves humbled and broken. Maybe it is because we weren't meant to find the right "fit" for the pieces - only he was! I guess we all need to hear these words now and again. It saddens me to think we have to fall in order to hear them, though. Yet, even in the failure, there is a redemptive quality. Remember, when the failure is an open door for God to begin afresh in us what we could not do through "mental determination", we are gonna see change - real change that gets us out of 'intentions' and into 'actualization'. Just sayin!

My steps matter

We've talked about this before, but it bears repeating: God doesn't tempt us! We WILL have temptation in life, but it doesn't come from God. He knows what we CAN and WILL bear - he will not allow us to encounter any temptation we don't have a way of ESCAPE from if we will trust him to help us escape! When we fail to resist temptation, that is ALL on us - we didn't turn to him for his help in the moment where we found ourselves going from 'zero to sixty' in a blink of the eye toward that temptation. When we turn to him for help, he is right there with the help.

The only temptations that you have are the same temptations that all people have. But you can trust God. He will not let you be tempted more than you can bear. But when you are tempted, God will also give you a way to escape that temptation. Then you will be able to endure it. 1 Corinthians 10:13 ERV

Some of us might think God should just remove the temptation - because we are Christians and he wants us to live holy lives. It is almost as though we think there should be no effort on our part to flee the influence that is tugging at our hearts. To tell you the truth, if that were the way God treated us, by removing all temptation anytime it came, without any effort on my part, I'd get pretty 'flabby' in my faith! Faith is like a muscle - it needs to be exercised. There are just times when I will need to take a step and another and another until I see what I believe in my heart. I believe I can and will live above temptation, but I don't always take the consistent steps to avoid it, so I deal with it more than I should!

Did you catch that - I don't always take the steps to avoid it - so I deal with it more than I should have to deal with it. Truth is, we all find ourselves in this same cycle of 'not avoiding' temptation, coming face-to-face with it and then wonder why we are struggling. Temptation is much easier to avoid when it is out of sight and mind, isn't it? But...be right there in arm's length from us and it is much harder! I speak from experience here - sometimes we 'play with fire' and wonder why we get burned! The choices to resist are made not so much when we are faced with the fire as much as when we are not facing the temptation at all.

There is a great deal God can do in us when we are quiet with him - allowing him to bury his word deeply into our hearts and minds; showing us where we are our most vulnerable; and helping us to plan our path so as to avoid as much 'fire' as possible. We have a limited perspective - much like us looking out from where we are seated right now. God has a perspective much like the drone that could hover over us right now, getting a bigger picture of our lives. We have to trust his 'bigger picture' vantage point to keep us safe. We learn that when we are out of temptation's way - not as we are facing making all those wrong choices in the moment. 

I think this is why I remind each of us to take time at the start of our day to center ourselves on his plans and purpose for our day. To seek his guidance, listening intently to his voice, counting on him to fill us with his Spirit and embrace us with his power. Scripture tells us to flee temptation - not to keep it at arm's length. God helps us learn how to put distance between ourselves and that which will pull us into sin. We take the steps to listen and learn, he takes the steps to teach and help! Just sayin!