The Plumbline

So now anyone who is in Christ Jesus is not judged guilty.   That is because in Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit that brings life made you free. It made you free from the law that brings sin and death.  T he law was without power because it was made weak by our sinful selves. But God did what the law could not do: He sent his own Son to earth with the same human life that everyone else uses for sin . God sent him to be an offering to pay for sin. So God used a human life to destroy sin.  H e did this so that we could be right just as the law said we must be. Now we don’t live following our sinful selves. We live following the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4) God used a human life to destroy sin - but that human life was the Son of God, come to earth with the specific mission of taking our sins to the cross. Does it ever surprise you that God used 'human life' to destroy sin? Jesus experienced what we experience from day to day, growing hungry, weary, sweating from hard work....

Finally Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not allow this conflict to come between us or our herdsmen. After all, we are close relatives! The whole countryside is open to you. Take your choice of any section of the land you want, and we will separate. If you want the land to the left, then I’ll take the land on the right. If you prefer the land on the right, then I’ll go to the left.” Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the Lord or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) Lot chose for himself the whole Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. So Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain. But the people of this area were extremely wicked and constantly sinned against the Lo...

It seems to be a fact of life that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God’s will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. In my mind I want to be God’s willing servant, but instead I find myself still enslaved to sin. So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh, what a terrible predicament I’m in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done by Jesus Christ our Lord. He has set me free. (Romans 7:21-25) A fact of life...that I want to do what is right...but I choose what is wrong. Sound like anybody else's life story? There is a constant struggle of the 'will', isn't there? We find ourselves pulled this way and that, all the while wanting to go just o...