/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 NLT)/
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.