War

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

(Romans 6:1-2 ESV)

There is an ongoing battle in this world against an undead foe. That foe is sin. As a Christian, I invested many years of my life engaged in a constant conversation with sin. A give and take relationship. It consumed me to the point where I could think of nothing else but the battle. A barrage of scripture memorization here. An amphibious accountability assault there. Boom, boom! War all around me!

During that time, I was looking to get just the tiniest foothold of control in my life. If I could just establish a beachhead, I thought, I could begin to drive the enemy back bit by bit. Sometimes I did get that beachhead and make advance against the enemy, but time and again I was repulsed and forced back into the sea. The prospects for victory looked bleak indeed.

But my enemy was fighting on borrowed time. Like the German army toward the end of the second world war, he could still put up a pretty impressive fight at the front but his ability to make war, to win the war, was already broken at home. Though the soldier on the beach at Anzio might not know it in the midst of a heated skirmish, the enemy he fought was already a defeated foe. If he had the advantage of the bigger picture, the overall trend of the war, he would realize that his side had already won. Down in the trenches, though, where the bullets are whizzing around you and your buddies are dying (think 'Private Ryan') its hard to reconcile that.

God wants us to have the bigger picture. That bigger picture is the gospel; the message of the cross. We are not to be mired in the trenches of our life fighting for each square inch, but reveling in the victory that was won at Calvary. I would be willing to bet that almost each of us who have been saved, at an early stage in our Christian life, felt that victory clearly. For a time we were lifted above the battlefield and witnessed the trend of the war - victory! And then we were told to stop day-dreaming and get back in the trenches, which we dutifully did (what we erroneously refer to as 'discipleship').

That victory is won, Christian. The truth is that we are no longer in the trenches locked in mortal combat with the law and sin. Christ has set us free from that. Completely free. The devil would love to have us continue to focus on the battles because our victories are short-lived and out defeats are many and extremely discouraging. Take a moment and put down your weapon and listen to the announcement from headquarters; "Now hear this - you are no longer under bondage to the law and to sin. Lift up your heads and see that the enemy is defeated! Victory is yours!"

Freedom. Grace. Forgiveness. Acceptance. All of these are ours in Christ. God himself has disarmed us by one act of love. Why has he disarmed us? Because we are not to fight any longer. We are to set down our weapons and hear things we have not heard in a long, long time; birds singing, rain, the surf on the beachhead. Things that remind us of our freedom. Rest.

Here is the battle you really face. Everything in you (and your enemy) says that if you lay down your weapon, you will die. And indeed you will. You will die to the law and sin. The battle will still rage around you, but you will no longer be participants, but "strangers and exiles on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13 ESV) That is what is meant by being dead to sin. Your reason will tell you that to ignore the law will lead to lawlessness. Human reasoning has always thought that, which is why Paul has to so often defend his position that salvation and sanctification are by grace alone through faith alone apart from works. The catch to living apart from the law is understanding that to do so means you have died to sin. "For apart from the law, sin lies dead." (Romans 7:8 ESV) Don't let the enemy convince you otherwise.

Are you tired of the fight? Lift up your head and hear the announcement Jesus came to give: "He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed..." (Luke 4:18 ESV) As the German army used to say to captured POW's, "For you, the war is over."

God Bless