SELF-EFFORT OR RESURRECTION POWER
12th Apr 2023
The Apostle Paul knew the effort it took to try and keep the law. He describes his life in Philippians 3 as a zealous law keeper - faultless. In Romans 7, we get a glimpse of the cost behind that statement, the struggle, the self-effort and constant failure to be the man he desires to be.
However, when he met the resurrected Jesus on the Damascus Road, he became a new man, like Jesus, resurrected, born again and living with new resources, yielding his will, his whole being to the Spirit of God and experiencing a new life, free from condemnation. He found the intimacy with the Lord he had always desired but failed to find by rule keeping. He had tried with everything he had but failed and now he sees that only by having the resurrected life in him by the Spirit of God is he able to have a life pleasing to Father God.
Read Romans 7 and 8 and see the contrast. In Romans 7 he is trying and failing, in Romans 8 he is living in a new way with new power. Romans 8:5-6 in The Message says, “Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.”
Resurrection life is the person of Jesus living by His Spirit in human beings who empowers them to live to please the Lord because of that connection. The new heart and mind want to please the Lord and the Spirit gives the ability to do so.
Even though I had met Jesus, received His forgiveness and love, I struggled to live the life I knew He wanted me to live, I struggled to keep the rules laid on me by fellow believers.
e.g. A Christian should…, and I knew what failure and condemnation felt like - until, hallelujah, I received the gift of the Holy Spirit and a new life and power began to operate within me. The joy and peace I had worked so hard to find by rule keeping was given through grace, acceptance and connection. Eden restored and Eden within.
We celebrated Christ’s resurrection last Sunday, we all need to come to the cross personally, but also experience our own resurrection as we allow Jesus to live His new life in us by the power and presence of His Spirit.
by Joyce Sibthorpe