Dear Lage:
Do you get discouraged? Do you find yourself struggling to overcome a particular temptation or sin, struggling and failing, gaining the victory one time and loosing it the next time?
This is a common problem with Christians men, and women too, and
can lead to intense discouragement and a desire to give up struggling
for the mastery over sin or temptation, but Christ constantly
urges us not to give up or become discouraged. Look away from
self to Christ who won the victory for us. Struggle we must over
sin and temptation, failure is the common lot of humanity, but
when we look at ourselves, our failures, discouragement can overwhelm
us, threatening to down us in self-pity.
Be strong, Christ says, be zealous to do the right, but don’t
let Satan discourage you. We may be wicked and evil, this is the
lot of all humanity, Christ understands our true condition, but
we need not zero in upon our sinfulness, but look at His righteousness,
realizing that He gave us his victory over sin. This thought ought
to encourage the faint heart, revive hope where only discouragement
and failure are evident, strengthen the feeble resolve, and give
vitality and courage to the faint heart.
But, if Christ has already given us the victory over sin, through
his righteousness, why, then do we continue in sin. There are
two reasons for this apparent discrepancy. Either we don’t
believe we already have his righteousness, or we are trying to
win the victory over sin in through our own strength, or perhaps
a combination of both reasons.
The struggle, we face, as men, is not to conquer sin, through
our own efforts alone, but to realize that the victory is already
ours for the believing. We are imbued with the falsehood that
we must DO something to vanquish sin in our lives, whereas, Christ
invites to believe that He has already accomplished the overcoming.
Therefore, our struggle is not to overcome sin and accomplish
perfection, but to believe that we are already perfect through
Christ’s righteousness. The struggle, then, is to believe
that He has already overcome sin.
If you want to drive to the store, you don’t use your strength
to push the car, but, rather, turn the ignition key, thus allowing
the car to propel itself. Your doing, if you will, is an act of
faith that the car will start when you insert the key and turn
the ignition.
The insertion of the key and turning of the ignition, in the Christian
warfare over sin, is faith that Christ has already overcome your
sin and given you the victory. The reason we fail to realize the
victory is simply that we refuse to believe. If we choose to believe,
the victory is ours, already, not that it becomes ours when we
believe, but, as we believe, Christ is able to overcome the sin
because we stop trying to overcome in our own strength.
To use the parallel of the car again. If I sit in the drivers
seat, confidently expecting the car to start when I turn the ignition,
while, at the same time, you are pushing it toward the store,
I can’t drive the car until you get out of the way for fear
of injuring you. Your attempt to push the car, forestalls the
proper functioning of the car, and neither of us goes anywhere,
very fast.
But when you get into the car with me, and I turn the ignition,
the car responds and our errand is rapidly accomplished. Thus,
when we stop struggling to overcome, believe that Christ has accomplished
the overcoming for us, thus freeing Him to do in us what He has
already accomplished, the victory is ours instantly.
Belief in Christ’s righteousness is the key that starts the
ignition, but if we fail to use the key, and, instead, push the
car---well you know the rest.
But the scripture says, “Faith without works is death.”
Faith, alone will not save us, for many proclaim, from the pulpit,
only believe and thou art saved, but James says that our faith
is made perfect through our works. Our work is to overcome sin,
through the power that is freely available from Christ. We overcome,
not through our own strength, but through His strength, but we
must make the effort, giving Him the credit or glory. If we affirm
the victory through our own strength, they we shall fail, for
our strength, to overcome sin, is insufficient, and we shall,
at last, realize our own insufficiency, when it is eternally too
late.
But if we believe Christ strengthens us, give him the credit,
then the victory, once gained is forever secure, unless we repent
and reclaim the sin. The choice is ours, the strength and credit
are Christ’s.
May the Lord richly bless you with endless victories, your brother
in Christ.
Allen A. Benson