God’s grace and our character
Through this series of blog posts we’ve explored something of the seven deadly sins, what they can do to us, what they might look like in everyday life, where the world might reflect or even celebrate them, and some encouragements from the Bible as we deal with them. For there are resources to deal with sin. We serve King Jesus, conqueror of sin, who declared the war won. He has done it, “it is finished!”, so the ultimate power of sin’s grip on us is broken. Yet we still feel its influence now. Sin creeps in, we need to be aware.
He’s won the war, the skirmishes continue, and we’re caught up in this spiritual battle. God our Father would grow our character, the new creation life in us, holy and awesome in his eyes and radically effective in making a difference in the world. God is a specialist in character growth! All this is rooted in God’s work in Jesus and brought to flourishing by the power of the Holy Spirit. He does it, he brings the growth and change, but we are called to choose to get rid of the old, decrepit nature of pride, anger, lust, envy and the rest, and put on the brand new life of humility, peace, love, contentment and so on.
In the aftermath of warfare, unexploded bombs can litter farmland or streets, and be overlooked as new houses and lives are rebuilt. As we enjoy God growing our spiritual lives, there’s value in looking at where our character, attitudes, emotions and behaviour might show some dark dangers still lurking which need rooting out. Spiritual bomb disposal might spare us and others much pain or frustration later. It might bring us great satisfaction and encouragement too, and accelerate our Christ-like growth.
The awesome news in our spiritual flourishing is that God’s grace never runs out. It is sufficient for us every day (2 Corinthians 12:9), not despiteour weakness but inour weakness.
So no matter how much we screw up, how long the journey to wholeness and being godly might appear, God’s grace is bigger than our failures and enough fuel for the whole journey. Our sins might seem like show-stoppers, or our false starts to growing in God might seem never-ending, but God’s grace is greater still. It overflows to the many (Romans 5:15) – that would be us.
God’s grace is the power to change, to make new choices, to say “no” (Titus 2:12) and start again. Sin can be subtle or spectacular, but it’s power is no match for God when we look to him and rely on his grace, day by day. Forgiveness is available, sin doesn’t get the last word for the Christian. After all, Jesus has already faced the deadly sins, and he nailed them to a cross. The one full of grace and truth has won, and has enough grace for us still.
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