22 october 2024 www.goodnewsfl.org Good News • South Florida edition YOU ASK WHY Living in the Tension When we hear the word tension, we usually think of the emotion produced by a stressful situation. Driving in heavy traffic comes to mind. For me, boarding an airplane produces tension. Put me in the martial arts arena with a younger, faster opponent, and I feel no tension; my mind is busy looking for the opening that will give me victory. Strap me into an airplane that is about to thunder down a runway at 160 miles per hour and somehow rise into the air, and I experience a great deal of tension! But I am speaking of a different type of tension here — the tension that the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as “a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements.” In the masterpiece that God is creating in our lives (Ephesians 2:10) as He conforms us to the likeness of Christ (Romans 8:29), we see this tension in a question that causes many Christians tremendous anxiety — in some cases even greater than my fear of flying: The seeming contradiction between our victory over sin in Christ Jesus and our ongoing struggles with sinful thoughts and behaviors. The Bible tells us, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1) and assures us that we have been “set free from sin and become slaves to righteousness” (Romans 6:18). So why, many Christians wonder, don’t I feel “free”? Experiencing tension The apostle Paul lived in this tension. “I do not understand what I do,” he frankly admitted. “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing” (Romans 7:15, 18-19). Surely I am not the only one who can fully relate to those words? “What a wretched man I am!” Paul exclaimed. “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). How many times have you and I uttered that same despairing cry? But we must keep reading. Paul did not leave us wallowing in defeat. He exulted “Thanks be to God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” And then he summed up the tension — the challenge that confronts every Christian man and woman who wants to walk worthy of God’s calling on our lives: “I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin” (Romans 7:25). Here is the conundrum: We are commanded, “Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15), yet we are painfully aware that “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, so that you do not do what you want” (Galatians 5:17). We do not do what we want. All of us think things we should not think; we say things we should not say; and we do things we should never do. We are truly grateful in the knowledge that “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), but we grieve at our own wretchedness. All too often, we come to believe that we can never change. “This is just the way I am,” we mutter dispiritedly. And if we are not careful, we can become familiar — even comfortable — with the sinful way we are. Walking in victory How do we live in this tension? We choose to live in victory. Nancy Missler wrote, “I have found that faith simply comes in the form of constant choice.” We choose every day to put on the whole armor of God, so that we can take our stand against the devil’s schemes to cause us to believe that there is no victory. We live in the victory that is triumphantly declared in the old hymn, “Standing on the Promises of God” – Standing on the promises that cannot fail, When the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, By the living Word of God I shall prevail, Standing on the promises of God. Will we walk perfectly on this side of glory? No, but we can walk in victory by choosing to take God at His Word. He has told us that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3), and we live in the light of that truth. He has told us that the same power that raised Christ from the dead, “the immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of His power” is working “in and for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19-20 AMP). “Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). We have been given the victory. We have His Word on that! “Everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith” (1 John 5:4). Living in the tension means living by faith that God is who He says He is and has done what He says He has done for us. So the next time you hear that voice in your head—the one we all hear when we stumble, the voice of the serpent that sneers, “You will never be able to walk in victory” — choose to stand on the promises of God. Speak the truth of God’s Word back to the accuser and say: “Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light” (Micah 7:8). This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN! Dr. Tommy Boland is senior pastor of Cross Community Church in Deerfield Beach (www.thecrosscc.org). He blogs regularly at tommyboland.com. - Dr. Tommy Boland - Pastor, Cross Community Church
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