avatarRoger Himes Esquire

Summary

The text discusses the challenges of fully embracing the gospel and living a life of faith, often feeling torn between human desires, pleasure, and spiritual pursuits.

Abstract

The article delves into the struggle between human desires and spirituality, as individuals grapple with the gospel message and its implications. It highlights the difficulty of finding balance between law and liberty, and the temptations of pleasure and self-satisfaction that often override the desire to do right. The author discusses the internal battle between wanting to be a blessing to others and focusing on personal needs, as well as the tension between responding to God and wanting Him to respond to us. The text also touches upon the concepts of faith, hope, and love, and how they are often replaced by unbelief, uncertainty, and apathy.

Opinions

  • The author suggests that life is often a "rally-coaster" of ups and downs, with individuals feeling entitled to do whatever they want when life doesn't go as planned.
  • The text implies that living a spiritual life requires discipline and self-control, but can be challenging due to the temptations of an uncontrolled life.
  • The author expresses the struggle of wanting to be a help and benefit to others, while also being drawn to preachers and worldly systems that promise a better life.
  • The text conveys the idea that living in a prescribed way, whether through God's law or other means, does not necessarily produce righteousness,

Why Can the New Testament Gospel Be so Hard for Us to Digest Sometimes? (Part 3)

Human Life and Reasoning Resonate with Us but it Can Reject Faith and Replace it with Human Fantasy: with Religion, not Relationship.

Photo by Colin Hobson on Unsplash

We often approach God like an old worn out boat instead of a yacht!

A P.S. in advance! Here is a warning about what is said here. Don’t take everything I say here as what I believe or how I live. The gospel is so good it is UNbelievable at times. Some say, “This is too good to be true. Even God can’t be this good.” Others have said, “I’ve never heard this before. It must be Bible error.”

This is a combination of how I’ve thought in the past, while coming to grips with the gospel personally. And then also what others have expressed to me at various times.

Luke says even Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in. . . Paul says we all see through a glass dimly, and if we think we know anything we don’t yet know as we should know.

Take things said here with a grain of salt, not as reality today. This is simply working through issues that a few of us may share.

Galatians speaks of liberty and freedom from bondage to the law, to sin, and to be delivered from this present evil world (1:4). There is a lot in the world that keeps us captive — both the physical world and also the religious world. So many things tempt us away from God, into self, and even sin. I can lose my will and fall into a pit depending on how much I'm tempted.

Pleasure often overrides any preoccupation with wanting to do right. Pleasure is often easy and doing right is often harder. Self often becomes more important than God’s Spirit.

A lot of our battle is law vs. liberty.

The law increases sin (First Corinthians 15:56), but liberty can increase the desire for the wrong type of pleasure. The law pressures us to try to stay on God’s good side, but for the wrong reasons. If we are believers in Jesus and his gospel message, he helps do this for us if we ask him to.

Here’s the fact: when life does NOT go the way I want it to, I feel entitled to do whatever I want to find pleasure and self-satisfaction. It’s like I’m more on a roller-coaster of ups and downs. Or I should say a ‘rally-coaster’ — up and down, up and down.

When life does not go the way I want it to, I often look inside myself to see what I’m doing wrong — or what I should be doing more right — so that God will favor me and bless me more and things will go my way more. I keep discovering this is the wrong way to approach problems.

I often know I’m in Jesus’ boat, but I’m in with three different groups of people and at times I seem to alternate between them.

On one end of the boat are the really spiritual people, who are high in God and trucking for Jesus. They have great dedication and drive.

The other end of the boat has unruly folks who are more into self than God’s Spirit, and they don’t mind playing around with sin.

In the middle are ‘average people.’ This can be defined as ‘where the worst of the best meets the best of the worst.’ I tend to alternate between the groups.

There is discipline and self-control needed at one end of the boat, but I don’t want to give in to an uncontrolled life at the other end. Being ‘average’ is easier and sometimes I gravitate there. After all, it keeps the boat more balanced, doesn’t it?

Pleasure and pain seem to be constant battles in life. Sometimes I feel like Esau in Genesis who sold his birthright for food. More than living a life of faith he wanted a full, satisfied stomach.

I know I’m forgiven by God. I’m told this more times than I recall because I am a believer in Jesus and trust him with my salvation. But I often feel condemned in life by the wrong things I do. Sometimes I feel more pain and guilt than I do God’s love and grace that produces pleasure.

I alternate between wanting to be a help and benefit to other people, as I know I should, to being a hermit only concerned with what I want and think I need — and how I feel. There was an old expression back about 1960 that said, “If it feels good, do it.” I never have dropped to this level, but I’ve talked with people who have — and they regretted it.

I often feel like I need to get more before I can give more.

But I know this is not a gospel reality, but a self-preservation tactic. I want to be a blessing and benefit others, and I also want to satisfy God’s Spirit inside of me. The gospel says I’m given all things, so just let them work into me and through me to the outside of me. Why do I think I need more?

I’m sometimes drawn to preachers and worldly systems that tell me how to have a better life now. This draws me away from experiencing more of God’s heaven on earth, or even his eternal life.

Things get foggy at times and I have difficulty seeing right and wrong. This doesn’t mean I don’t know right and wrong. I know the difference. But I don’t always see the right functioning in my life. It’s not this way all the time, but sometimes I don’t even care about it. I care about ME.

I just often want whatever gives me a better ‘ROI’ — return on investment. Sometimes I see a better ROI on worldly things than on godly things. I want to be blessed more than I want to be a blessing, at least at times.

At times I don’t want to respond to God. I want him to respond to me more.

The gospel tells us to live in (1) faith, (2) hope, and (3) love. Too often I live in (1) unbelief, not faith, (2) uncertainty instead of hope that is the anchor of my soul, and (3) apathy instead of love.

Two high school kids saw the word ‘APATHY’ written on a blackboard. One asked the other what it meant. The other said, “I don’t know and I don’t care.” That’s a good definition.

Freedom and liberty are not about me having my way and getting all my desires met. Neither is it me living in the Spirit, giving God all his desires met through me. Often I do a good job of this — at least from my perspective — but sometimes I do a very bad job of this. He wants me to believe, trust, and love.

Living in a certain prescribed way — whether you call it God’s law or something else — does not produce the righteousness, peace, and joy, coupled with his grace and love he says to experience.

Doing GOOD is not the same thing as relating to GOD. The first is expressing ME more, hoping that others — and God too — will notice me more. The second is experiencing GOD more.

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