The War That Rages Within Me!
Have you ever reached a point in your life when you so settled things with God that you felt as if you would never get angry again. That nothing could push you to a boiling point because you had been through what you thought was the worst that you could go through? For all of us that is the normal Christian life. We reach a pinnacle on top of a high mountain and figure that we are good to go for the duration. STOP! Don’t unpack there yet! Sure as you live something is going to come up that will drive you way down in the valley if you are not careful:
21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? Romans 7:21-24 (KJV)There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Paul was not and is not the only one who struggles with a raging war within them. You can love God, fully surrender (at least as much as you know to), determine that Jesus is Lord, and do all that you know to walk holy before the Lord. There is however an inward man when the right button is pushed that screams for vengeance. We want retribution for our hurt, our pain, our suffering, our humiliation – and we want it now! "God, don’t you see what they are doing to me?"
We lament over our internal struggle, but how do we find recourse? How do we stop the rage that wants to erupt? How do we fight against ungodly feelings? Why do we withdraw from those who have hurt us and attempt to punish them with our absence? We do this because this is the initial reactions of our flesh. Don’t fall into condemnation, P.U.S.H.- Pray Until Something Happens! We must go to God for help, we can’t do it alone. We must stay in His presence, even though we feel unworthy. We must cry out for His Spirit to wash over us and envelop us with His love. Then we can say, with all the saints before who have experienced this:
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. e
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Romans 7:25;Romans 8:1-4 (KJV)
Maria