Preaching to Myself

I haven't written in awhile.

I haven't wanted to write.

I've been struggling to feel that I've been learning or growing.  It seems odd to me that I can walk through a summer filled with lessons and things that I know God was doing in my life and still feel like I haven't taken many forward steps in my Christian life.

I sat at my desk the other night and struggled to grasp the purpose of sanctification. 

Why must being a Christian be so hard?

Why do I always fall back into the same sins?

Why try to get better if I always seem to be going backwards?

Why must I be sanctified anyways?

Part of me knows that I can answer these questions without too much thinking.

I'm called to suffer as Christ did.

I'm at war with my sin nature, returning to my old habits and patterns instead of living out who I am now - a new Creation in Christ.

My enemy is prowling like a lion, seeking to devour and ruin.

I am called to obedience, and holiness.

But it took me until this morning to reassert the truth that drives sanctification, that drives the desire for holiness, that drives the whole concept of Christianity.

God loves me.

He loves me. I am accepted by Him.  I have been chosen by Him. For THAT reason, I obey. Because of Christ, I can choose holiness. I can (and am) being sanctified.

I do not obey in order to be sanctified. My aimless struggling to "do good" or hopefully do enough good to be good enough for Christ…it's nonsense.  I don't have to be good enough for Christ. I will never be good enough for Christ.

But He has chosen me anyway. And He has set me FREE from sin and death and from this truth springs a hunger for sanctification. 

If I'm not desiring to be sanctified, I need to return to the Gospel, preaching to myself my own helplessness and sinfulness and hearing of the grace and mercy and endless love of Christ which will then initiate a desire to obey and be conformed into the image of the One who created me.

This is a four minute video (click below on the word G.O.S.P.E.L.) that we showed at camp twice a week - you can NEVER hear the Gospel preached too many times - and I thought I would share it with you, even as I remind myself of the good news of the Gospel.  May these sweet truths drive us to pursue a deeper relationship with our Creator.

G.O.S.P.E.L.

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire." [2 Peter 1:3-4]