Wednesday, May 20, 2009

When the flesh is big... two

"For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" Romans 7:18-24 
 
We all understand in our own experience exactly what Paul is speaking of in this verse from Romans. Doesn't it seem difficult, if not impossible, to seek and savor, to delight in, to worship and meditate on Jesus Christ though we really desire to so?  I appreciated this quote from a book I have been reading. It's sad but true. 
 
"You can feel the hostility of the flesh whenever you approach God - it makes real love for him into work: Digging around the Bible to find a juicy new insight to impress your small group is like sailing the Caribbean, but poring over the Scriptures to find the Lover of your soul is like skiing up Mount Everest. Conjuring up a happy mood with some music you don't even know the words to is like solving 2+2 with a calculator. But savoring the glory of Christ and his tender love until your heart is softened toward him is like using mental math to calculate pi to the thousandth place. And giving a birthday present to your best friend is like forcing down some double-fudge brownies. But giving up your extra bedroom to a homeless person in the name of Jesus is like eating the Rockies for Breakfast." (The Enemy Within: Straight Talk about the Power and Defeat of Sin ~ by Kris Lundgaard)

Understanding the power of our flesh is not to destroy all hope but rather bring clarity and great hope.  If we don't know the poison we can't take the proper antidote.  Please hang in there with me.  This is life transforming truth.  

Tomorrow, Stephanie will share some thoughts about the battle of the flesh that I found genuinely honest, transparent and personally inspiring.  Her thoughts added one more piece to the puzzle and I asked her to write them down for this series on the flesh.

Diane 

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