Since the fall in the garden of Eden, we have all been a part of the spiritual war between right and wrong, good and evil, God and self.
We are born designed in the image of God, but with a human nature that is sinful and resistant to the truths of God. We desire to please self and live lives that satisfy our natural desires to be in perfect relationship with the God of our universe.
We substitute this perfect relationship with self relationships inside this world. These self relationships hurt, disappoint, and never fully satisfy. No earthly satisfaction will fully satisfy.
We are at war and we are either on God’s team or we are not. You cannot participate as a bystander. Your non-participation is participation for the team that is not God’s.
There is no middle ground here. There are two kingdoms and you either are fully in surrender and servitude to the kingdom of God or to the kingdom of self.
This war we are facing is a daily battle that is a part of every aspect of our lives. Each day you must choose to fight for the winning or the losing team. You must choose to be a free citizen of heaven or a citizen of the damned earth.
On paper that binary choice seems so simple. How could you not choose freedom in Christ when your other option is eternal damnation apart from Christ?
The Christian walk is not easy but how it is so much easier than walking by yourself. The Christian walk frees you from self, but transfers your bondage to Christ.
You have to humble yourself at his feet and see your need for his salvation. You have to recognize your need and your inability to make yourself right before him. This recognition and repentance requires humility and a softened heart.
You hand over your control to the Lord of the universe who can see all of time and holds eternity in his hands. You become enslaved to the God of righteousness and are freed from your shackles of sin. You become fulfilled in the true hope of the future as you step over to fight for the winning team.
You put up your white flag of surrender and lay down your life for the one who took the weight of all of your sin on his shoulders when he died on the cross for you. You no longer fight alone, but you fight for God and for his glory.
He provides you with strength. He provides you with everything you need to face each day. He gives breath to your body and words to speak through all situations.
He guides your actions and gives you incomprehensible wisdom and understanding. He speaks through his word, leads by his spirit, saves through his son, and loves justly. He floods you each day with mercies upon mercies, grace upon grace.
He puts a veil over you and covers you with the clean and pure blood of the perfect lamb. He does not see you as your sin, but sees you as his child. His love does not fail. He will never leave you or forsake you. He is your God and you are his child.
Until the end of your time on Earth, until you breathe your last breath, he will be with you. And then after your time on Earth, you will be able to fully worship him and be in his presence for the rest of eternity.
All of your natural desires will be fulfilled and made complete in him. You are a human being who was designed to be in a right relationship with the God of the universe.
Making this binary choice is life changing. It requires stepping out in faith and admitting your inability to continue on your own.
It is simple. One choice that changes your eternity. One choice that gives you purpose to continue living. One choice that satisfies.
We have no way, apart from the blood of Christ, to make ourselves right before God. There is nothing that we can do to make ourselves good enough. God must call and we must respond in humble obedience.
In this daily fight we must remain on guard. We cannot let our conscience grow dim to the power of sin. We must guard our hearts and our minds. We must be wary of the voices we let speak into our lives.
We must not grow accustomed to sin and let its power grow dim in our minds. Sin is powerful and should not be treated lightly or ignored.
We must protect our thinking and our feeling from the attacks of Satan. We must keep our affections focused on Christ. We must through righteousness protect ourselves.
We must not fall into the trap of thinking that our own righteousness is sufficient to handle situations. We are saved by grace through faith, not of our own works (Eph. 2:8-9). Our own goodness is like filthy rags in comparison to the perfection of Christ (Is. 64:6). There is none righteous, not even you (Rom. 3:10). The whole Earth is guilty before God (19) and all have sinned and fallen short (23).
God offers us freedom in him. He makes us right through his death. He gives us the imputed righteousness of Christ and we are called to live a life that is continually pressing on and hungering after something that is beyond this Earth.
We choose to apply righteous principles to our daily lives as each day we take up our cross and follow after Christ. Our walk is not perfect, but our God is perfect and he does not leave us on our own.
Through obedience and holiness we receive earthly joy. We do not substitute the righteousness of God with paper band-aids. We go to God first in all situations. We spend time in the undistracted presence of God and live out a life of submission and surrender.
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." - Ps. 19:14
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