"Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." -James 4:8, ESV
I have spent a lot of time thinking about this lately as we have been preaching through Paul's letter to the Galatians in my church. What does it look like to actually live a life that is free from bondage to sin and death? Being the weak human that I am, it is actually hard for me to envision what it would be like. I don't think I am alone in this. The Apostle Paul himself let us into his own struggle with sin in Romans 7. Although he understood better than most his new reality in Christ, that is that he was indeed free from sin and death, he also understood that there is still a real struggle with sin in his mortal body. We have not yet been glorified brothers and sisters. Even so there is a sense in which we experience some of our future glory today. In certain moments we experience God's power. We sense the Spirit within us. God does the miraculous through us. We have felt the transformation he has begun in our hearts. Our hearts are warm with his presence and for that we are grateful, but the struggle is still present and very real. So how do we win? The answer is both simpler than most people make it and more complicated at the same time.
To put it as succinctly as possible, victory over sin begins with God and not with us. We did not initiate the work of salvation, God did. Neither can we advance it nor can we complete it. It is a work that only the Spirit of God can accomplish in us. We tend to be overly focused on our part rather than on what God has done and is doing. This is a fatal error in our attempts to grow up into maturity in Christ. It kills our efforts because, as Paul writes, it is an attempt to finish a spiritual work by the flesh (see Galatians 3). To use a very imperfect illustration, can you imagine trying to chop down a huge tree with a hammer? It is entirely the wrong tool for the job. Sure you may make some advancements, but it will come at a great cost and much greater than if you had the right tool. Have you used a chainsaw? It's magical.
To be honest though, trying to win over sin in our own strength isn't even as effective as trying to cut down a large tree with a hammer. A nail file may be more comparable, but really there is no tool which could possibly be as ineffective at cutting a tree down as our own strength is at inner transformation. We cannot do it, not matter how hard we try. Sure we may be able to change our behavior to some degree at much cost, but we can never change our true disposition. Our hearts are forever dark until the light of Christ shines in. That light chases away the darkness and that light is precisely what we need in order to truly change. External change will always fail in time because it does not have the internal framework to hold it up. So when we focus on what we can do rather than on what Christ has done and will do, we are simply working with the wrong tool for the work at hand.
The enemy knows that if he can get us focused on ourselves, he will always win the day. He knows that when we are operating in our own strength, we have no power over our broken human nature. In fact, trying harder in our own strength is something the devil would most certainly encourage. This is why the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul...
"If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations— “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh." -Colossians 2:20-23, ESV
Our sin nature will win every time when we rely on our own ability to keep ourselves holy and righteous before God. There may be an appearance of wisdom or of having things together, but it is a mere facade and not the truth. I am convinced that the reason why many Christians fail to walk in a manner worthy of Christ is because they are constantly trying to do spiritual works from the flesh rather than by the Spirit. This is a recipe for disaster and most of us don't even realize we are doing it.
This takes us back to the beginning of this post, to the verse I quoted from James. The key to living a life that is free from bondage to sin is not trying harder or doing better in our own strength. The key is drawing closer to God. As James wrote, when we draw near to God he draws near to us. When God is near, the light is bright enough to wash out the darkness in our hearts. We are as scripture says, a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17) and the nearness of God empowers us to live like that is true. James 4:7 says to submit to God, to resist the devil and he will flee from us. We have power to resist the devil whenever we are close to God. Do you see what God is calling us to? Do you see the freedom in it? Every other religion and human ideology essentially says, "do better, achieve, get your life together, do more." Jesus says, "come to me all who are tired and loaded down with burdens and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). But how can he give us rest when he is calling us to such a difficult task? The only way it can be restful for us is if he does the work in us while we are at rest in him. That is not to say we have no part and are to do nothing at all, but that we must first be with Jesus before we can join him in the work of true transformation from the inside out.
We must first be in Christ before we can become like Christ and once we are like him, we will do the sorts of works that he does. So stop striving in your own strength thinking you will be able to become the person you aim to be that way. Instead, draw near to God through Christ and he will empower you. Pray. Engage the scriptures. Seek after God. He will do the hard work within you which will begin to bleed through to the surface over time and you will find yourself acting more Christian naturally rather than striving so hard only to fail. Draw near to Jesus brothers and sisters! Only in him can we find true freedom from bondage to sin.
