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 different.
Romans 7:21-25
Forged in Fire
My dear sisters, the downhill journey crafted by us and for us has brought us to an abrupt end. Do we continue or do we dare to turn around? The journey onward looks so appealing. I don’t know about you, but my path contains roses, sunshine, and peace. Turning around torments me because I know what is right. Roses and sunshine won’t get me far. A couple of yards ahead, that luscious treelined golf course path will trap me and lull me to a death I cannot escape. But, turning around, facing mount doom, and climbing out of hell seems so unreachable. With unending thanks for each of you, I am not alone.
We weren’t born free. If freedom was natural, we could keep trekking the easy road and walk smack into it! Nope, that’s not how this works. We cannot obtain it on our own. Freedom requires acceptance and action.
We were born into a life of dependence—-limits, boundaries, and restrictions. We struggle to loose those chains and become independent. As we mature, we exchange dependencies—-a spouse for parents, a job for school, etc. Even still, this is not freedom.
The accumulation of goodness in our lives does not create freedom. Instead, fire, like the formation of the earth’s crust—-volcanic eruptions, violent earthquakes, drought, floods, and stretches of calm forges freedom. Freedom results from a history of conflict and reconciliation, war and peace, advance and retreat. Freedom is a fight crafted from action (verbs if you will—-made, raised, rescued). And the subject of each freedom verb is God.
We were born dead, already in sin. This sin destroys our capacity to live, blinds us to the truth, and hinders us from living out healthy love and insane peace. We need deliverance. Freedom is the promise we find in the gospel, the good news.
Walking downhill with “self” at the epicenter, we are at the hands of “this present evil age.” We need rescue. A change of mind. A change of heart. “Who will rescue me from this body of death,” from this path of death?
The rescue here is not a removal “from” but a rescue from the “power of.” We aren’t rescued from the world but from the sin that separates us from God and His created purpose for us.
The rescue here is not a removal “from” but a rescue from the “power of.” We aren’t rescued from the world but from the sin that separates us from God and His created purpose for us. The power of the path is complacency; it’s easy. We need freedom from the mindset of this “present evil age.”
What is forged in fire, the fire cannot touch. Once we decide to turn around, to accept the rescue, our real life begins. Here we learn the substance of our character—-who we are and what we are made of.
The free life is strenuous. Living in freedom is demanding and painful. If security is our priority, we won’t want freedom. However, we have a rescuer at our back, nudging and encouraging, guarding and protecting. We have our sisters at our side, lending a hand and inspiring. There is a history of rescue to remind us that the trudge to freedom is possible. Many have gone before us. Submit to the rescue, sisters. Allow it to overtake you. It takes bold courage to receive the freedom Christ has given us.
Life is a gift, not what we salvage from the ruins. Life is an entirety into which we grow, not a fragment that we snatch on the run. “Grace and Peace,” sisters, that is what we can expect to gain along this journey. Those two words declare that we are free to live.