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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