Do you ever feel as though you are in bondage to the pleasures or distractions of this world?
TV, family, friends, ministry, school, exercise, food, sleep, work?
As Christ followers we are already righteous in Christ but are not yet perfected until the day of redemption. Although Believers are free from the condemnation of the law, sin nonetheless continues to dwell within, and all genuine Christians (along with Paul) should be deeply aware of how far they fall short of God’s absolute standard of righteousness.
Who or what is your enemy?
Many Christians might says, "Satan” is their enemy and rightly so…however…One of the greatest enemies overlooked in our lives is the flesh. So often we see the enemy as being outside of ourselves when our own flesh is the enemy! Let us not be ignorant of the power of the flesh in our daily lives.
1 Peter 2:11 says: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”
Romans 6:12 says: “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.”
Romans 7:14-25 “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 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.
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.”
Grace is God's giving us sovereign joy in God that triumphs over joy in sin. In other words, God works deep in the human heart to transform the springs of joy so that we love God more than anything else. (Piper)
Are we in bondage to the pleasures of this world so that, for all our talk about the glory of God, we love TV and food and sleep and money and human praise just like everybody else? If so, let us repent and fix our eyes like flint toward the WORD of God in PRAYER: O Lord, open my eyes to see the sovereign sight that in... your presence is fullness of JOY!-Piper and Augustine!
