How To Love the Lord thy God

With all your heart, soul, mind and strength

Chapter 11 Not Your Battle  

Perhaps you tried to resist sinning  on your own strength, that’s a blueprint for disaster.

You may be struggling with a works based righteousness. I did early on in my Christian life, it took months for me to work through that hellish wilderness. If you are  in that wilderness it’s probably going to take some time to work through it but don’t worry Christ will get you through. How did I get through it? Ironically the exact same way Luther did way back in the day. Luther was tasked to teach a class of college seminary students the book of Romans, while reading it he came to Rom.1:16

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”

When Luther read that (probably for the umpteenth time) it’s like a light went off in his head and he finally understood it. Do you get it? Probably not, for some reason this truth is difficult for us to understand. We need spiritual eyes that can see and spiritual hears to hear.

So lets think about this great truth and perhaps the Holy Spirit will graciously give you insight. “The righteous shall live by faith” In the book of Hebrews it is repeated but a little different it says, “But my righteous one will live by his faith.” NIV 

Get it out of your head that you can live a God pleasing life on your own efforts, you can’t, you will fail. With that settled then the only alternative is a life of faith, you just have to figure out how to do that and your golden.

So lets break it down…

1. You are going to live righteously
2. You shall do this
3. You shall live this
4. You shall live this life by faith

If you live by faith you will live a righteous life. Its by your faith that you live righteously. You shall do this there is no other option. When the Bible says you shall that means that you must. Failure to do so and you are glued, screwed, and tattooed.  You shall live this, it doesn’t say you are to believe this doctrine is true or this teaching is true or believe in the great historical facts of Christianity. Don’t get me wrong we are to beleive in the fundamental truths of Christianity, all that is necessary and good but that is not saving faith, that certainly is not living a righteous life by faith. Living. Get it, living not believing. There’s a difference a big difference. 

So how do you live a righteous life by faith? It all comes down to temptations and how you respond to them. If when tempted to sin you have three options, the first is to cave into it, the second is to resist with your own strength, and the third is to put your trust in Christ to deliver you. Trusting in Christ involves you clinging to Christ and not letting go, enduring the temptation until deliverance comes. That’s living by faith. Yeah I know its not fun, its not pleasant, its hard but that is what is required of us. And if its any consolation it gets easier, read the chapter entitled, Smooth Sailing.

If you fail, don’t worry about it, after all I’m sure you have a whole life time of failures so no big deal, get up, learn from that experience, you underestimated the power of sin perhaps, perhaps your commitment is not 100%. Now you know, half heartiness is not going to cut it. Keep trying, don’t give up.

Paul says that in a race all the runners run but only one receives the prize so run that you may be able to obtain it. So who exactly are we racing against? Fellow Christians? Nope. We are not competing against one another, that should be obvious. I keep circling back to this very important verse… Eph4:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

The great Apostle Paul uses different word pictures to communicate the same thing, sometimes he talks about us being soldiers like in Philemon, “a soldier of the cross” and “fellow soldier” or in Timothy, “endure like a good soldier”. Sometimes he uses gardening as word pictures like in 1Cor.3:6 “it was God, not we, who made the garden grow in your hearts.” And the above quote from Ephesians he talks about wrestling.

Wrestling, running, soldiering, gardening. He says to run to win the race, he says to make your garden to grow, to do your job as a good soldier,, to wrestle in such a way as to win the match. We are to win, we are to succeed, we are to grow.

We are running against the same folks that we are soldering against and the same folks we are wrestling against, and the same folks who are keeping our gardens from growing. The rules, authorities, cosmic powers, spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And we don’t have a choice about this matter, we must fight, it is either that or just lay down and surrender. Do you want these evil forces and your sinful nature to just have their way in your life?  

We must fight, and we must win for scriptures says you shall live a righteous live by faith. But don’t try to do this in your own strength, tap into the power of God. Here are some scriptures about this power…

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Rom.1:16

 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  1Cor.1:18

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 2Cor.4:7

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 2Cor.10:4

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2Cor.12:9

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might. Eph.1:9

I know this is tough, I get it, I have been there done that. The hard part is getting started on this path. You are going to have to give it your all and at the same time you are not going to engage in battle on your own strength. Greater is he that is in you then he that is in the world. You are going to put your trust in Him and rely on Him to deliver you from your powerful enemies. The Power is there, He lives in your heart, tap into it and you will succeed. And if you fail, don’t quit, get up and keep trying until you figure it out. You have all the ingredients you need to succeed, you are lacking nothing, you just have to put it all together. You can do this. God’s speed.