Post by Cindy on Apr 27, 2016 6:39:52 GMT -5
Our response to God’s love is summarized as loving our neighbors. This simple expression of obedience is a profound treatment for failure and shame. At first it seems counterintuitive. After all, our problem was that we fell in love with what we could receive from others; it would make more sense to detach from them. This love, however, is different. It is the love of a person freed rather than enslaved. Having received the love of Christ, we are willing to say to other people, “My desire to love you will outweigh my desire to be loved [honored, appreciated, respected] by you.” Can you imagine the freedom in this? No longer are we dominated by popular opinion. Perceived rejection doesn’t control us as it once did. Instead, we keep coming back to the question, “What form will love take now?”
When you turn to Christ, you don’t have to say, “I am special because God loves me,” which is true but not the critical issue. And you don’t have to say, “What a miserable, idolatrous wretch,” which is also true but also not the critical issue. Instead, you simply think less often about yourself. Your successes and failures are still noticeable, but they don’t encumber you the way they once did.
“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 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 7:13–25)
Heart of the matter: Daily reflections for changing hearts and lives
When you turn to Christ, you don’t have to say, “I am special because God loves me,” which is true but not the critical issue. And you don’t have to say, “What a miserable, idolatrous wretch,” which is also true but also not the critical issue. Instead, you simply think less often about yourself. Your successes and failures are still noticeable, but they don’t encumber you the way they once did.
“Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful. 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 7:13–25)
Heart of the matter: Daily reflections for changing hearts and lives
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