Posts Tagged: focusing on Christ

“Focusing on the Problem is the Problem”

On July 16, 2023 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

One of our church pastors who had not preached before spoke for the morning service. He was very good! Nothing against our regular preacher who is also very good! One of the things that I liked about our speaker this morning is the fact that he seemed to have read my blog post yesterday. Just joking. I doubt very seriously that he had read my post, but he certainly confirmed some things I’ve been struggling with and thinking here of late.

His sermon was based on Romans 7, a passage in which Paul writes about an intense internal struggle. He speaks as if he is a man who wants to do what is right and good, but it is impossible to pull it off. Every person I’ve ever known very well (if they are honest) admit to being involved in such a personal civil war. Anybody who has ever tried to eat more wisely will be familiar with this.

Our guest speaker, said that if we simply focus on the problem of the bad things, all we get is more badness. Yes!

Our speaker also made a radical suggestion: Look to Jesus! And that really is a radical thing to do. Here’s the deal: We all want to do “it”—no matter what “it” is—by ourselves. Even those of us who believe that Jesus came into the world to save sinners seem to think that, once we have made our initial commitment to Jesus, we’re on our own. We probably wouldn’t actually admit that, but our lives reflect the fact that this is what we actually believe. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Almost fifty years ago, I said “I do” to the most wonderful person on the planet. What if I had awakened the morning after and said, “That was a good commitment ceremony we went through last night. Now, I am going to do this marriage thing without you.” That would be way beyond stupid, wouldn’t it?

And yet, that is sometimes how we approach the Christian faith. To paraphrase something that a friend said many years ago, “It is very difficult to live the Christian faith without Christ.”

It’s not difficult. It’s impossible.

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