already but not yet

First thing, I am on my last rotation of 3rd year with 2 weeks to go. Crazyy. I've liked this last rotation alright (surgery), but I have missed my morning quiet time a lot. Having to be at the hospital before 6 has knocked it out. And I haven't been great about finding time later in the day to make up for it. Not that I've turned into a terrible person, but I definitely can tell a difference when I'm not spending time every day in the word. Lesson learned, life changes and you gotta roll with the punches! When I don't have to be at work til 8am and all I have to do before then is get myself ready, not too hard to wake up and read for awhile. Life won't always be like that but I should never put my #1 on the back burner.

Last week at church we talked about Romans 7. Paul says "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." Amen, brother! I have always read this and thought, thats exactly how I feel! But for the first time I thought about WHO was saying this. Paul. The man who wrote a majority of the New Testament. The man who traveled all over telling people about Christ. The man who was beaten, stoned, and put in prison for Christ. The man who loved Jesus so much he longed for death to be with Him. The man who eventually became a martyr for his faith. Wow! I would have not thought I could relate to that guy. You'd think he would never mess up! But he struggled with the same exact thing every other Christian struggles with- our flesh. We are new creations in Christ, but we are slightly schizophrenic, 2 personalities in one. Flesh vs Spirit. Vs 25 says "I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." Sin goes and takes advantage of our flesh weakness because it can. It's a constant battle pulling us in the exact opposite direction of where we want/need to go. I often feel guilty because I just can't seem to get certain things right. I'll say I need to stop a certain sin, and then later on I find myself doing just that. Or else there's something I know I need to be doing, and yet I don't do it.

So yeah, that kind of sucks. But yey! I read a commentary that said if I can identify with Paul in this, I am blessed! When we struggle that hardly means we aren't living for Him, it's only proof that we are longing to live in Christ because we recognize the sin in our life. In fact, the Christian that doesn't see the struggle is more alarming. We have to hate sin before we are to turn from it. Until we reach the end of ourselves we aren't going to look to God. What if we all agonized over our condition like Paul did?

So what do we do? How do we fix it? Well, we can't. But good news, He can! I loved this analogy... A woman was once paralyzed in a diving accident and taken into the hospital. As she was lying on the bed, the sheet covering her body fell off exposing her to those in the room. She desperately wanted to cover herself but couldn't do it in her own power. So I have these silly sins in my life I want to fix. Turns out, I can't fix them myself. As much as I try like this woman did, my body will not do what I want it to, and worse, it's obeying something else! We do what we despise, and what we desire we can't accomplish. We cannot and will not be able to do it on our own. It'll only lead to frustration and failure. It's all about the grace. I don't have what it takes to get my heart to where I want it to be, so who will rescue me if I can't do it in my own efforts? Thanks be to God- thought Jesus Christ our Lord! He can deliver me and everytime I get to the place of sin I must depend on Him and cry out, I can't do it but you can! He will empower me to live differently and experience victory. I still will fall and thats OK, because I can get back up again and rely on Him to keep me moving towards being conformed to be like Jesus. Day by day being made new.

I am already new in Christ but not yet to the finish line. But He will complete what he began. God's intention is not to leave me in the power of sin but He wants me to be transformed. Slowly but surely.