When I first became a Christian, I would often hear verses about the new life in Christ that described how God would work in my life to transform me. Verses like 1 Corinthians 5:17, Philippians 4:13, 2 Corinthians 12:9. Without a doubt these verses are full of truth, power, and encouragement. However I believe these verses taken out of context could give the wrong impression that God will instantly and independently remove any trace of sin, the desire to sin, and going forward you will live exactly as Jesus did. I struggled to understand why I still would commit the same sins as before and why wouldn't God save me from it when I cried out to Him?
While God does give us a new heart (Psalm 51:10) and we begin to love Jesus more and more each day (Matthew 6:33, John 4:13-14, 21:15). We will sin however (1 John 1:8) and if/when we sin, we wonder where God was to rescue us from it. Worse yet, we could be deceived into thinking we are not really saved (Matthew 13:19).
God initiated our relationship with Him when we could not (Romans 5:8, Ephesians 2:5) and He made it possible for us to love Him and be in a relationship with Him (John 17:20-26). However, we are wrong to think that just as we were unable to save ourselves from sin, we are in the same way helpless with regards to sin after we follow Christ and that God will need to rescue us from every temptation. Our redemption will not be complete until we see Jesus, but in the mean time, we have been given the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:19-20, 1 Timothy 1:7), the Word (Psalm 119:105), and the Church (Hebrews 10:24) so we could be empowered to live as Christ did (Romans 6:11-14).
We have years of training and practice in loving the world and obeying its desires which manifests itself when we encounter temptation (Romans 7:21-23, James 1:14-15) and this must be worked out/overcome (Philippians 2:12-13). As God reveals aspects of our lives that are contrary to His will and His plan, we must choose to hand these over to Him. This is why Jesus tells us to pray that God's will be done, as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10).
So what is the process by which this happens? In an humbling aspect of God's nature, He wants us to willingly love Him and requires us to work together with Him to grow into everything He has prepared for us in Christ (John 15:1-16, Ephesians 2:21-22). This demands effort from both God and ourselves because throughout this process we will hold on to various aspects of our old self and in many ways want to continue to live as we did (1 John 2:15-16). You will find yourself being challenged daily by the Spirit to submit more and more areas of your life to Christ (Luke 9:23). The pendulum can swing to the other side and after a while you may start to feel pride that you have become a good person and have removed any trace of sin from your life, when suddenly we encounter a new discovery about ourselves that shows how deeply sin has permeated our lives. Don't believe me? Try fasting for a day or so and see how your disposition changes.
Just as you would not walk onto the track for a marathon without preparation, so we must prepare and train by practicing the disciplines of the Spirit. Hebrews 12 is the inspiration for this blog, where the author tells us to train. The spiritual training being advocated for uses the metaphor of an Olympic athlete and the word used for train in the Greek is gymnadzo which is where our modern word and idea of a gymnasium. So the Christian life is a lifelong membership to God's Gymansium where we exercise the entire person, not just the muscles of our body. I quote Dallas Willard from the Renovation of Heart who made the point far better than I could:
I will not be able "on the spot" to do the good thing if my inner being is filled with all the thoughts, feelings, and habits that characterize the ruined soul and its world. Rather, if I intend to obey Jesus Christ, I must intend and decide to become the kind of person who would obey.
If we do not prepare to stand strong against temptation, then we should not have any reason to expect that we will be able to stand against it when it comes. At the start of this post, I stated that it is wrong to think that God will do all of the work to bring change in your life. He could but He won't because that would not produce a Church full of dignity and character (Ephesians 1:18). However, I am also not advocating a legalistic life where we are each left to ourselves and God is simply observing. Here is another quote from Willard which he considers the key point of his book:
Spiritual transformation only happens at each essential dimension of the human being (Spirit, Soul, Body, Mind) when it is transformed to Christlikeness under the direction of a regenerate will interacting with constant overtures of grace from God. Such transformation is not the result of mere human effort and cannot be accomplished by putting pressure on the will alone.
I hope that this blog will equip you with tools, resources, and encouragement so you may be strong in the Lord (Ephesians 6:10) and serve Him completely (Mark 12:30).
