The inconsistencies of mankind verse the perfection of God.

The inconsistencies of mankind verse the perfection of God. A topic well worth understanding as it will free the mind from some of their strongholds. There needs to be a breaking down in the formation of the building blocks that sin has cemented to our thought patterns. The book of Romans is of great assistance when unpacking this subject.

Let’s do some self-reflecting; how often do you find yourself saying I will do this or that but wane due to some interference? It may or may not be a valid reason why you cannot kick the ball with your son in the garden, but to him all you have done is broken your word; the times I have said something and for one or other reason gone back on my word, actually revolts me. And yet sin has taken care of that attribute in our lives, it is who we are! Here are some verses to back up this reality; “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:18-20) – Now some astute scholars would suggest that Paul is making reference to us prior to salvation, which I cannot accept, why? Test it against your own life after salvation; have you never again failed in that area? If you can which honesty say “yes I haven’t”, then by all means take the teaching of those verses prior to salvation but if not and you have been found wanting as I have, then we must in my opinion conclude that this reality is still relevant to us after salvation.

What has change after our born again experience is that we have all been given the mind of Christ; “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” (1Corinthians 2:14-16) - We can now understand spiritual truths, and our thoughts deepen as we grow in Him, nevertheless to some degree at salvation we must understand who God is and what He has done for us in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He has forgiven us for our sin, which deserved and required punishment but because of God’s grace we have escaped that punishment and all because Christ has paid the full price for our sin! The grace of God! This is a miracle and it is spiritual perceived. Through this God given miracle we are now sanctified by the blood of the lamb and perfectly acceptable in God’s eyes. We have been reconciled to Him because of His perfect grace. In his perfection He was able to free His enemies and make then allies, but more than that we are now sons of God! God has made a way!

Nevertheless the war of right verse wrong continues to bombard our minds and we need to fight for daily sanctification. And the only way we will ever get through our struggles correctly, is to find grace. Some may have learnt to somehow keep sin at bay in certain areas of their lives, though some technic or program but if it is outside of the provision of the grace of God is will only ever leave a man boasting. Here is what I would refer to as the greatest of all verses expounding the point; “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) – The danger we face as carnal people is we like to work under asperses of independence. We get saved and now we believe there is a certain path we should follow, which there is! However the mistake the church at Galatia made was the same mistake so many of us make, which is this; “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-7) – We get save in the spirit and then we look to earn our salvation though the deeds of our flesh. This is a common mistake amongst believers and we need to trim our sails regularly so that we do not lose our way.

This is where the beauty of God is most evident. In His perfection, which is complete, it’s not as if God acquired grace to give out, He is grace, He never developed it but He is perfect in grace. In other words complete and nothing can ever be taken from or added to God’s grace for it is perfect. Why did God send His Son to die for sinners like us? The answer is starring us in the face. Because He is grace and in His eternal plan God is working that out perfectly; with no blemish, His perfect plan unfolds even though some curse God as they worship His creation, not acknowledging Him as the creator. God does not flinch for a second but continues in perfection to offer grace to His enemies. Wow! How big is our God!

Do you see how futile it is for us to boast about anything we achieve in Him? We are sinners saved by grace, imperfect, tainted by sin and yet God sees us as righteous, perfect because of Christs sacrifice. Only God’s perfect grace has accomplished this and obviously the perfect love of God completed Him to be merciful, Wow! As soon as we look to take some sort of recognition for our own feats we forget about the perfect grace of God. This is why we are so aptly taught that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble! “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1Peter 5:6-7) - His perfect grace becomes our reality when we learn to trust Him in every area of our lives. Sure we will experience grace in the areas we yield to God, but what about all the secret hidden pockets in our lives? May God help us to trust Him even more as we see that day approaching. I suppose when we understand that we cannot help God with this process, it may just free us to serve Him the way we should.

Today is Christmas and if you are persuaded that we must celebrate today as the day of Christ’s birth, I plead with you do not then share it with other idols like Santa and the like, make sure you message is clear and concise, used today to propagate the gospel as you side-line the straw men that have been designed to take our eyes off God’s grace!

Signing off

Tyrone