Is This Me?

This blog has been full of what I hope are great ideas and encouraging reminders of the gospel. But it isn't me. It's me in the sense that I can talk the talk just fine but this blog has mostly been about preaching to myself. I don't know these concepts in the sense that I don't always live them out. I came to a realization that in some ways, I only sin when I want to. True, there is temptation and lies of the devil in there, but it seems like most of my sins recently have been willfully committed with little regret.

I can point to exactly why I should not be doing what I am, there is no attempt to justify it, but I am continuing in sin. Why is this? My friend Jace told me he believes it is because I am not tasting and satisfying myself in Christ. My sin holds a greater "joy" for me which needs to be less than the joy I find in Him. I need to use the joy of the Lord as my strength.

It also seems that I need to trust in God. My pride has been rising and I have been doubting that God told me not to do certain things out of His love for me, a love that I can trust over anything else in the universe. He has called me to be upright and pure. I am not.

In the past I have taken solace in the fact that so many great members of our faith have stumbled before me. I perpetually return to Genesis where Abraham has heard the literal voice of God, promising him a great nation coming through Sarah and himself. In spite of this, Abraham doubts and tells the King of Egypt and Abimilech that Sarah is his sister, to save his life. He is doubting God, and yet it was counted to him as righteousness because of His FAITH. I can take comfort in the failures of others because I am not alone in my struggles and not the first to fail our perfect and holy God. Jace blew my world when I told him this. He upped the ante. He told me that even if I was the only person who ever had or ever would face this trial/temptation/test I am called to be holy.

So for now I am seeking to grow in a fear of God and meditating on 1 John. "If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. " Now, that verse might be discouraging to some, because if you're like me you read that and see all the ways we aren't walking in the light. Thankfully, the books goes on, "My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

My buddy Sean described this as the "Rinse and Repeat" verse of 1 John. As you read, if you become discouraged, return to chapter 2 verse 1. "But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." I have an advocate, you have an advocate.