Brown's Daily Word 4-14-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for the gift of another day to live, to love, and to enjoy His grace and mercy. The Lord blessed us with a beautiful gathering for our Wednesday Evening Fellowship and study. Each week I come home from these gatherings blessed and propelled to serve and honor the Lord.
I had a very winsome and humorous conversation with my granddaughter Micah yesterday afternoon. She is 5 and is home schooled. I asked her how her school was going. She said, "I am too busy grandpa. I do not have time for school".
The eighth chapter of Romans begins with one of the greatest promises in all the Bible. "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." There is something in those words that makes your heart flutter. The significance is in the fact that in spite of our sin, God doesn't condemn us; this is overwhelming in and of itself. When you read that verse in light of chapter 7, the personal application of its truth is even more invigorating.
Chapter 7 is one of the most powerful statements about struggling with sin in the history of all literature. What makes it so powerful is that Paul is providing us a glimpse into his own struggle. For me that is encouraging.
Often when I think of the apostle Paul, I think of somebody who is bigger than life. I see him standing up and defending his faith in front of the Roman governors and even the emperor. I remember him on his great missionary journies all over the Roman empire. We have all listened to him as he has instructed the churches to be faithful, and as he encouraged Timothy and Titus to remain true to their calling. Probably most of us have put Paul on quite a pedestal.
When we return to the 7th chapter of Romans, we get a peek behind eyes of the apostle, and he was a lot more human than we might have first thought. Paul was a fellow struggler. (Read 7:14-15, 18-19) Paul was honest enough to recognize within himself a tendency to get caught in to the stranglehold of sin. This is not, however, Paul talking about the way he used to be sinful before he became a Christian. This is Paul saying, "Just this morning, I gave in again". It happens to us all. Earlier in his letter he has proclaimed "No one is righteous, not even one." Later, he stated matter of factly, "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." He went on to state it even more personally, "I struggle with sin, and sometimes I lose." Finally, the frustration of losing seems to break through to the surface as Paul proclaimed in 7:22-24, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man; But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
How many times a week could we just kick ourselves for failing? A thousand times, in a thousand different ways, we have tried to live by the standards that we know are right, yet we have done the stupid thing; we have sinned against God despite our knowledge of what is right. This makes us feel stupid, filthy, and wretched, to use the language of Paul. Paul then continued in Romans 7:25-8:2, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."
Paul admitted to the struggle going on within every human being, and when we try to win on our own strength we often get pinned down. Yet, the greatness of the promise of God’s grace is that even when we fail again, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is security in our relationship with God. If we are in Christ, we do not need to wonder whether God is angry with us. "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." If we have a personal relationship with Jesus, we do not need to fear God’s wrath. When God looks at us, He doesn’t see a wretch; He sees a son or daughter.
A little while back I heard a story about a girl who was the daughter of one of the royal families of Europe. She had a big, round nose that destroyed her beauty in the eyes of others -- and especially in her own eyes. She grew up with this terrible image of herself as an ugly person. So her family hired a plastic surgeon to change the contour of her nose. He did his work, and there came the moment when they took the bandages off and the girl could see what happened.
When the doctor removed the bandages, he saw that the operation had been a total success. All the ugly contours were gone. Her nose was different. When the incisions healed and the redness disappeared, she would be a beautiful girl. He held a mirror up for the girl to see. But, so deeply embedded was this girl’s ugly image of herself that when she saw herself in the mirror, she couldn’t see any change. She broke into tears and cried out, "Oh, I knew it wouldn’t work!" The doctor labored with that girl for six months before she would finally accept the fact that she was indeed different. But the moment she accepted the fact that she really was different, her whole behavior began to change.
Paul recognized a very important truth, in the fact that we act according to what we know we are. A little later in Romans 8 Paul asked a very important question that at one time or another is on the mind of every Christian. ( 8:35-39) Still none of those things can separate us from Him. The problem is that when we are foolish and we fail, our tendency is to turn away in shame.
"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." There is never a time when we will turn toward Jesus our Lord, and not find his arms extended, waiting for our return.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/rSnxM6hsTYA

Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott