Saturday, April 5, 2008
hopeless and wretched
I am amazed at how easily it is to mess up. It seems that i fall down all the time. Sure we get back up. Try again, but how many times does god forgive and give chances? Maybe we have to come to place where we dont like our sin so much that we feel hopeless and wretched. Of course that is the problem...hating our sin. Its easy to say it when we ask for forgiveness because we know that it is what we are supposed to say and acknowledge. I dont have true it actually is in my own heart. The problem is that i do hate it. I hate it because i know that it hurts the heart of god. I know that i "feel" guilt. And as Spurgeon said, "nothing torments a man's soul like a convicted conscience." But then why do i go back? As human beings our brains are designed to avoid those things that dont feel good. Most sin doesnt even feel good in the act. Of course there is some desire there otherwise it would not be attractive. But if i know that it hurts god, i know that it torments my soul, and i know that i will not enjoy it, why do I run without question, and without hesitation? I long to be free. Free from myself. Maybe thats not a good desire, obviously putting blame on oneself must be in the right attitude, otherwise it is merely feeling sorry for oneself or self-mutilation. I want neither of those. I simply want to be free from the addiction of sin. Yes addiction because it is the only word to describe the tendency of going back again and again to the same place looking for something. I want god to find pleasure in me, to let his holy presence dwell with me. How i long to be able to have intimacy with him. I have come to understand that i am hopeless and wretched. left to myself I am simply a guide and leader to my own destruction. With my strength i am not able to fight the slightest desires. I implore the giver of hope, and the leader of the hopeless to give the strength of self-control, and the grace to be free.
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3 comments:
All i can say that you are not alone in this. You had a courage to post this and admit the failures. Unfortunately, not a lot of us can do that but if we are totally honest with ourselves we will know that we have our addictions, sins etc. that hurts God's heart as well. Unfortunately, we are so afraid of rejection and judgment that we don't admit that there is something wrong, don't admit our struggles. I have the same fear. I don't know the answer to your questions. What makes us go back? You are correct, there are no satisfaction. Why do we go back to what we know is wrong? Why do I go back to what I know is bad for me and wrong and hurts God and doesn't even feel good? I don't know. All I can say is that it's a battle. It's a fight and one day it will be over. We can't stop crying out to God for help cause the moment we do that we are doomed.
Lovely-Truly Lovely.
"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."
-Romans 7:14-25
David-
I can absolutely relate to this struggle, as I'm sure we all can. I think Paul described it best in the above passage from Romans when he talked about our need to be "rescued from this body of death." I cannot be free from sin apart from the unmerited grace of Jesus, no matter how right and noble my desires. When I fall short and sin, "it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it." However, I don't rely on my own ability or even desire to be free. I can only rely on Christ to save me from this body of death, and look toward the promise of a new heaven and earth, and a new body for me and for you.
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