Can I be honest with you? I fail often. I fail my wife and kids, I fail people in my church, I fail people who need help, I fail in my ministry, I fail by sinning, I fail at noticing the things God wants me to do; I fail in so many ways. I am inadequate. Each and every day, I ask God “Why me? Why let someone who fails as often as I do continue to serve you? Why am I allowed to continue on? I’m not worthy, I’m not good enough, why send me?” And then I am comforted by the fact that there is no one good but God, and that the One Perfect Man died for all of my failures. The Apostle Paul wrote about his own failings: “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” Romans 7:20-25
This is not a leave or an excuse to sin, by any means! Paul, after all, wrote (one chapter prior): “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?” (Romans 6:1-2). God challenged Cain to master his sin before he killed his brother, God detests sin in any form! What should we do then, when we find our struggles so overwhelming? Confess, repent, cling to God! Our sins separate us from God and serve only as a reminder of our need for our great savior. Charles Spurgeon, called the Prince of Preachers, who struggled in much the same way, said this: Let not your sense of sin make you think little of my Master. You are a great sinner, but he is a greater Saviour. Do not say that you have matched Christ, or overmatched him. Come, Goliath sinner, the Son of David can conquer thee or save thee yet: ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.’” “The Way” (Sermon 942, MTP 16:420)
You’re not too far gone that Christ can’t save you. If He can save (and still use) me, He can do wonderful things with you. Have great sin? The Savior is greater still! Stand firm upon the rock that is higher than you and I! Cling to the cross and nail your flesh there! Jesus by the Holy Spirit will cleanse you and remember your sins no more!
1 John 1:1-10
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us—that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
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