My problem, pure and simple, is sin and unbelief.

Everybody wants a god they can work with, don't you think? Assisted-living, you might call it. A god that is big enough to solve our problems, and forgiving enough to leave us alone about our sins. Even in OT days, some of Israel's neighborhood pagans would ask the God of Israel for help, simply because he seemed to be the strongest one around. Everybody needs a strong god tucked away in an easy-to-reach pocket. Powerful, but never pushy. Strong, but willing to fade into the wallpaper as soon as the need-of-the-moment is met.

The thing is, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not about a strong god, not exactly. It's not about an easy-access power-source, able to help us over whatever obstacle presents itself. It's about a god who made himself weak, who made himself nothing, and who, in so doing at a point in time in history past, received the terrible justice we ourselves deserved.

If it was only a matter of power, he wouldn't have had to die. It was a matter of sin and justice. It was a matter of loving the unlovable. You. Me. All of us. Even at the cost of his life.

Our problem is not that we need a helper. We need a savior, and here's the thing. He came, he did what he had to do, and we're still living like it doesn't matter. Like it's irrelevant. Like there's something else we need in addition to that.

Here's another thing. I sinned today. I knew it, and it wasn't some marginal namby-pamby sin either. And you know, I was of two minds, you might say. On the one hand it made me want to gag, and yet, well, on the other hand, I enjoyed it. And for that reason it was hard to be really sorry.

So I went for a walk. I walked through the park and tried to talk to God about it. I tried to tell him how bad I felt about it, but that was a half-truth at best. Yes, I felt bad about it. But I felt good about it, too! Whatever! I mean that. Whatever!

But aren't we supposed to be convicted, I mean really CONVICTED, for our sin? I began to realize, though, that what I felt about my sin was not really the important thing at the moment. The reason being, the heart is damn deceitful, that's all there is to it.

So I started to think about the cross as I walked along, and Jesus paying the price for my my sin. I mean, MY sin, that sin I had just indulged in. The cross of Christ removed it from God's consideration. That's good, I thought. And now my attention was not on me, or on my heart, or how I felt about my sin. It was on something immeasurably more significant. I was glad of that.

But then I thought, I don't want to be messed up like this anymore, God. Ever. I want to be free of this. And right around then it began to dawn on me. "Jesus paid it all," doesn't simply mean "there is now no condemnation," though that's big! It also means, "For the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death."

You know what that means? Cutting to the chase, it means freedom is at last real. Whether it feels real or not, it is. The truth is, I'm a now-but-not-yet child of God. He's renovating my heart, he's transforming me even now, into something more closely resembling his plan for me, more closely resembling him, in fact. I believe that! And yet, man, I'm so not there yet. Sometimes it makes me shudder, but it's the main problem I face. Every time I read Paul's words in chapter 6 of Romans, where he says "Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life," I realize that as a child of God I do have a choice. But at the root of my sin is sheer unbelief in the very truth that God has brought me from death to life. That I am not who I once was. That I am, in fact, a new creation. Simply put, I do not believe God when he tells me I am his child and heir. I don't need to hope and pray that God will do something to help me. I need to recall what he has done, and what that means for my life now.

What then? Cheer up, sinner. Christ has set you free from what once had bound you. Your Abba wants you to know that you are His and His alone.

On a related note, listen to what Steve McVey has to say about all this:



Read more from MecVey on this subject at his blog.