Adam’s
one sin brings condemnation for everyone, but Christ’s one act of righteousness
brings a right relationship with God and new life for everyone. Romans 5:18
The whole subject of spiritual power is most important. So many
Christians find themselves involved in a continual struggle to live up to what
they know to be God's standard. For them Christianity is a manner of life
composed of various rules and regulations. They know what ought to be and what
ought not to be, and they therefore struggle to attain to this level of living.
Their consciences play a large part in this constant effort, and for this
reason they suffer many fears and fail to experience the promised joys. Life
for them has become a strenuous business, fraught with much disappointment and
many failures. They may from time to time have a sense of attainment and
success, with much resultant gladness, but with the fluctuating emotions of the
soul, things seem to collapse and go all wrong. So it is that people find the
Christian life burdensome; they long to know real victory, true deliverance and
the joy of the Lord, whereas they experience the ups and downs of a constant
struggle. The Christian life depicted in the New Testament seems so different
from their actual experience that the devil is never slow to pounce in with his
suggestions that a life of constant victory is quite impossible, so that all
their hopes are but unreal dreams. Satan wants God's people to despair of
knowing His power.
But there is an altogether different life, different because it
is based on the entering into something already completed in Christ; not
something to be attained to but rather that which has already been
accomplished. It is not a standard to be lived up to, but a Person to be lived
with. It is impossible to measure the vast difference between these two kinds
of life. The former is one of self effort and defeat, while the other consists
in enjoying the reality of Christ the power of God.
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