Tapping Into the Spirit's Power
Paul's struggle with sin and our own
Struggling with SIN
The end of the whole thing is that we arrive at an inward situation and not merely an outward one. Actually we break this last commandment, not to covet, before we break any of the others. Any time that we break one of the other commandments of God, it means that we have already broken this commandment, in coveting.
—Francis Schaeffer
When John Belushi died in the spring of 1983 of an overdose of cocaine and heroin, a variety of articles appeared, including one in U.S. News and World Report, on the seductive dangers of cocaine: “It can do you no harm and it can drive you insane; it can give you status in society and it can wreck your career; it can make you the life of the party and it can turn you into a loner; it can be an elixir for high living and a potion for death.” Like all sin, there’s a difference between the appearance and the reality, between the momentary feeling and the lasting effect.
Those who are really under grace take sin seriously. Sin is no longer their master, but it is still a powerful adversary. If we don’t take sin seriously, we fall into it. If we don’t take victory seriously, we fail to utilize the Holy Spirit’s help
Picture the highly trained commander of a modern tank equipped with laser guidance systems, electronic wizardry, and atomic power. In preparation for a crucial battle he:
• loaded up with the wrong fuel
• filled his magazines with the wrong caliber ammunition
• picked up the wrong maps and directions
• left most of his crew in their bunks
How effective would he be under fire? Yet how often do we undertake spiritual warfare in our own strength, using our own tools and resources, and making up our own directions as we go along? We
Our Stride Isn’t Wide Enough
Many years ago when the children were small, we went for a little drive in the lovely English countryside, and there was some fresh snow. I saw a lovely field with not a single blemish on the virgin snow. I stopped the car, and I vaulted over the gate, and I ran around in a great big circle striding as wide as I could. Then I came back to the kids, and I said, “Now, children, I want you to follow in my footsteps. So I want you to run around that circle in the snow, and I want you to put your feet where your father put his feet.”
Well, David tried and couldn’t quite make it. Judy, our overachiever, was certain she would make it; she couldn’t make it. Pete, the little kid, took a great run at it, put his foot in my first footprint and then strode out as far as he could and fell on his face. His mother picked him up as he cried.
She said to me, “What are you trying to do?”
I said, “I’m trying to get a sermon illustration.”
I said, “Pete, come here.” I picked up little Peter and put his left foot on my foot, and I put his right foot on my foot. I said, “Okay, Pete, let’s go.” I began to stride one big stride at a time with my hands under his armpits and his feet lightly on mine.
Well, who was doing it? In a sense, he was doing it because I was doing it. In a sense there was a commitment of the little boy to the big dad, and some of the properties of the big dad were working through the little boy.
In exactly the same way, in our powerlessness we can’t stride as wide as we should. We don’t walk the way we should. We don’t hit the target the way we ought. It isn’t that at every point we are as bad as we could be. It’s just that at no point are we as good as we should be. Something’s got to be done.
Be infused with the Spirit’s power
Let the Spirit: Assist, Intercede, Cultivate, and Shore us up.
When I was converted, I made this mistake: I thought the battle was already mine, the victory already won, the crown already in my grasp. I thought the old things had passed away, that all things had become new, and that my old corrupt nature, the old life, was gone. But I found out, after serving Christ for a few months, that conversion was only like enlisting in the army—that there was a battle on hand.