Open letter to a friend...

(this was a response to a very thoughtful letter from a friend seeking...)

Don’t be so hard on your self…you sound just like Paul (Romans 7:14-24)…



14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

We all struggle with what Paul calls our sin nature. I get so aggravated at church because people think that they are good because they go to church, but that is not what God says. We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That doesn’t change because of going to church or even accepting Christ as your savior. We still are imperfect people.



The pastor who’s sermons I have been sending you, John Burke, has a book I just finished and in it he wrote that Jesus says he is the living water (John 4) and when we try on our own efforts to be follow the rules (morally) we get spiritually dehydrated. Only God can make changes that stick and have value, this is a mystery that most Christians don’t get. What John Burke says we can do is “intentional practices” which is reading the bible and praying. And over time, God changes our desires to not want to do, to having the strength to avoid, to overcoming the struggles we have. It’s a journey and the most important thing is the direction we are headed (either toward a close relationship with God or away from God). But all of this is predicated by accepting Jesus as our savior (Who will save me from this body of death, praise God is it Jesus Christ).



I hope this isn’t too heavy, but I got real excited a few weeks ago when I read this and something clicked. Because I want to want the right things but sometimes I think it would be nice to do what is wrong and I feel so ashamed about it. But the fact that I can’t change me, is a relief and weight off my shoulders. I anticipate the day that I can make all the right decisions and not because I made them but Christ in me.



I could go on…