Standing on the Rock

It’s not as important to overcome sin as it is to struggle mightily against it.  The battle allows the powerful mercy and grace of God to join us as we struggle.  For this reason I’m convinced that if we will confess to each other that we’re in the battle and ask for prayers from a friend we will find that we’re not alone.  As we battle we also begin to realize that God has given us friends in addition to his Holy Spirit.  We will not lose our battle if we refuse to stop fighting.  God gives victory to His children not because they are so strong but because they lean on His strong arms.

God is watching us all the time not so He can see how strong we are but where the direction of our lives is going.  I cry over my sins sometime because I don’t want to violate God’s will for my life.  I find that I’m trying to live for my own pleasures and purposes.  Of course it’s pigheaded on my part but it’s clearly my selfish choices that get me in so much trouble.  I know how much I need God’s mercy.  And I depend on it to feel cleansed from my sin.  That’s why I pray Father forgive me and help me to feel your grace covering me.

I became conscious of how much I need God’s blessing of forgiveness early in my life.  I remember a trip to Indiana and a late night discussion with a college freshman.  We discussed the holiness of God and how miserably we’d failed to live holy and clean lives.  Guilt was heavy and covered us totally.  We felt lost and sought someone to tell us the good news of forgiveness in Jesus.  As we listened to the good news we wanted it in our lives.  About 1:30 AM we found a baptistery and were baptized into the grace of Jesus.  We put on Jesus as our Savior.  That should have been the end of the bad in our lives and the beginning of only good, better, and the best days.  But neither Ed nor I were that naïve.  We knew Satan wouldn’t let us stay on God’s side without fighting fiercely for us to return to his ways of rebellion against God.  And every day has surely presented occasions where we’ve had to render allegiance either to Jesus as supreme leader of our lives or Satan.  Many days have found me floundering between these two allegiances.  I grow weary of my own sloppy discipleship.  I made a decision once for all time.  I love Jesus and that settles it.  Yes, but sometimes I go back to the old ways.

This is not the real story.  The fact is I am God’s and nothing can separate me from his love.  Paul says in Romans 8 that death or life, angels or demons, no powers will be able to separate us from the love of God.  Only one thing would do it; if I quit trusting him as my Savior and I will not do that.  He will help me hold on.  And, what about you?  It’s the same with you now isn’t it?  I thought so.  Neither you nor I are strong rocks – we’re pebbles.  Jesus is the real rock—the boulder who will uphold us all the way home.