Friday, March 17, 2017

Keeping in Line

We spent last week in a country where driving happens on the left side of the road--and David was brave enough to rent a car. He did an amazing job and, to his credit, was open to the family's backseat driving. A couple of times he was so intent on staying on his side of the road that he didn't notice people and rubbish bins along the curb. The more he tried to avoid obstacles to the far left, the more difficult it became.



Sin is like that. We try to stay in the lines, with God at the center and avoiding sin on the left. Somehow we get sucked in. We weave back and forth between God and self. The harder we try to avoid what we know is wrong, the more unstable our thinking and Christian walk becomes. Instead of growing in faith and steadfastness, we live like drunken sailors drifting in and out of one and the other.

The answer--as David determined--is to keep our eyes on the center line. The more focused he was on the center line, the less often he strayed to the left. The closer you and I stay to Jesus--the more aware we are of making Him the focus--the less sin will deter us. To walk is to move forward...at whatever pace God allows, with our goal and ambition being the Lord Jesus Christ, by His grace and for His glory.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. (Galatians 5:16-26 ESV)


Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
 
Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:8-14)
 

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