To obey. Perfectly. When I fail? CONFESS. Only the fool imagines him/herself ABLE to obey. Well, unless the fool so dumbs down the law/sin to outside-the-cup stuff that’s easy to obey superficially, so s/he imagines acceptable obedience. No such thing as acceptable obedience. Perfect. Or failure. All have failed, and all Christians continue to fail.
Faith is not like a muscle that I exercise in order to believe. Faith is a GIFT from Above. Fresh faith comes from fresh conviction of sin by the Spirit of Jesus. Little faith comes from little conviction, little CONFESSion. Much faith comes from much conviction, much CONFESSion.
The nicest, kindest, most-loving thing Jesus ever does for us kids of His, is to freshly convict us of the sin/idolatry to which we are currently blind. Ahhh. Only the freshly convicted experience fresh faith, fresh other-worldly peace, fresh contentment with everything just as it is, and everyone just as we are, for now. Grace is for fresh failures who KNOW they are fresh failures. What’s missing more than anything in the Church today, is unusual-self-awareness. We Christians imagine ourselves followers of Jesus, instead of the failures we are. In God’s eyes, we are superior to NO one. In our human-wisdom, we imagine ourselves superior to many. Self-deception, not self-awareness.
Our human-wisdom has an agenda — wants Jesus to give us what our human-wisdom thinks is best for us and those we love. Pride, not humility. Self-reliance, not Jesus-dependency. Only Jesus knows best. Jesus-dependents have no agenda of their own, no wisdom worth leaning on. Jesus-dependents are curious/expectant to see what Jesus does NEXT in us, others, circumstances.
— Dave McCarty, GospelFriendships, easily self-deceived, always needing fresh conviction by Jesus’ Spirit
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