To Him Who Is Able

"When we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons...So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God...But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?" from Gal 4

Why do we turn back to sin and the fleeting pleasures of sin, whose slaves we once were and who we want to be again? Why is it so hard to flee from sin and to run to Christ, the one who brought us to know Him and delivered us from a life of slavery?

I am so encouraged by Paul's letter to the Galatians and the Spirit's power to overcome our flesh's desires. We have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us. And the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us. Having begun by the Spirit, we are not being perfected by the flesh, but by the Spirit who gives us life in Christ.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Rom 8)

God has given us the authority to say NO to sin by the power of His Spirit at work within us. Though we still struggle in this earthly tent, we have been crucified with Christ. All our sin was nailed into Jesus hands and feet on the cross. He bore all of God's righteous wrath against our sin. And, there is now no condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus! Praise the Lord!

Take comfort in that God uses our sin to remind us of our constant need for dependence on Him in prayer and our absolute inability to make ourselves right with God. But, praise God, we have ALREADY been made right before God, through the blood of Christ the Lamb!

He WILL sustain us to the end, guiltless in the day of Christ Jesus. (from 1 cor 1)

"Now to him WHO IS ABLE to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen." from Jude