A Rejection of Mediocrity

Christians love to read clever anecdotes about how to overcome a particular besetting sin or thwart the schemes of the devil. Why wouldn’t we? This isn’t necessarily a method of doing that….but hopefully it will bring you a little comfort anyway.

The flesh — it’s a constant battle, isn’t it? We fool ourselves into thinking that our own strength will keep us righteous, but sin overtakes us nonetheless. We cry out with the Apostle Paul, “Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”

Our answer should be the same as his.

“Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ….there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”

I was reading through part of Psalms when I recalled these words. King David wrote Psalm 18 as a celebration of God’s strength and the victory he’d been given over Saul and the rest of his enemies. Here’s an excerpt:

I love you, O LORD, my strength.
The LORD is my Rock and my Fortress and my Deliverer, my God, my Rock, in whom I take refuge, my Shield, and the horn of my salvation, my Stronghold.
I call upon the LORD, Who is worthy to be praised, and I am saved from my enemies.
The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry to Him reached His ears.
He rescued me from my strong enemy and from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me.
They confronted me in the day of my calamity, but the Lord was my support.”

I don’t know about you. But I was never really able to identify very much with King David in passages like these. I’d never had to fight against people who wanted me dead. Usually, when I was in a bitter dispute with someone, I had been the one at fault. I didn’t ever have a time that I “pursued my enemies and overtook them, and did not turn back till they were consumed.”

But even so, the passage really resonated with me today. So I read it over again a few times. Re-reading scripture is a really good idea.

Then I saw the parallel.

“The cords of death encompassed me; the torrents of destruction assailed me; the cords of Sheol entangled me; the snares of death confronted me.”

“Oh, wretched man that I am? Who shall deliver me from this body of sin?”

The parallel continues.

“You have given me the shield of Your salvation, and Your right hand supported me, and Your gentleness made me great. You gave a wide place for my steps under me, and my feet did not slip.”

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.”

What peace and what blessing! “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The battle against the flesh isn’t a battle we must fight alone, or even a battle that we can fight alone; the battle is and always will be the Lord’s. And He is more than capable of defeating sin.

For me, it’s just an awfully beautiful sight to imagine:

“The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered His voice, hailstones and coals of fire. And He sent out His arrows and scattered them; He flashed forth lightnings and routed them. Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at Your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Your nostrils.”

Don’t you see? This is what God does to our flesh and our sin when we give Him the reins of our life! Is there any conceivable way that we’ll be defeated by our own selfish lusts when the Lord of the universe is fighting for us?

“For You equipped me with strength for the battle; You made those who rise against me sink under me. You made my enemies turn their backs to me, and those who hated me I destroyed.”

Dear Christian: trust in the Lord, and lean not on your own understanding. Seek Him first and He will bear you up.

David

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at 5:50 PM and is filed under Evangelism, Hearts. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.