Some "how-to" observations from along the way

“I trust in Jesus as my Savior, but I don’t feel very Christian ... I don’t act the way a Christian should act ... something’s wrong with me ... I can’t do this.”  Do you know anyone who feels that way?  What happens next is that we become discouraged within ourselves or even begin to doubt God.  If you don’t mind, I’d like share a few Biblical insights that have been helpful to me throughout the years.

Know that this frustration is common.  We all join in the Apostle Paul’s lament: “I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do” (Romans 7:15).  Whew!  What a relief!  I thought it was just me! 

Understand the battle within you.  We who are in Christ have two natures: a sin nature (aka “the old self”) and the Spirit of Christ living in us (aka “the new self”).  And they don’t get along!  “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other ...” (Galatians 5:17).  Ah, so that’s why I’m so uplifted in church and then cuss at other drivers on the way home! 

Don’t let your sin nature define you.  Like Paul, we can confess that “nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Romans 7:18).  But also like him we’ve been given a new, eternal identity, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:20).  We still have a sin nature and in our weakness, we still sin.  But our old self no longer defines us, nor are we enslaved to it.  Christ is our life; our identity is in him who knew no sin.  So I need to start seeing myself as God sees me, right, and stop beating myself up? 

Deliberately choose.  When we recognize the sin nature and new nature within us, our choices become clearer (as does the need to choose).  “Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13).  I guess this means I don't give my tongue over to my old self for gossip, but offer it to God's Spirit in me as a tool for encouragement.  

Develop the discipline.  With Paul, we “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).  Sounds like work.  It may take a while to form this habit. 

Stop trying to change your sin nature; set it aside, instead.  Paul again: “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires ... and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:22-24).  Wow!  Somehow it seems easier to set aside the awful tendencies of my sin nature than to change them.  And if my new self is the Spirit of Christ in me, why not just go and do as he leads me? 

[Click here to see the daily reading in Romans 6:1-14.]