When I became a Christian it felt like I was constantly fighting against certain thoughts and habits that I never gave a second thought to before I was a Christian. Things that were perfectly acceptable before turned into things I constantly battled to avoid afterwards. If I'm honest it hasn't really changed since! I came across the following illustration that I found helpful, so I thought I'd share it:
Imagine your life as a door. Before you became a Christian, your sins were like nails being pounded into the door and left there. When you asked Christ to forgive you for all your sins, all of the nails you had collected were removed. Unfortunately, what was left was a door full of holes! Not very pleasant to look at and not particularly useful either. But God then began patching up the holes. More accurately He began healing the scars left by sin, making your life into a door that will look unscarred after years of constant pounding. He truly does make us a new creation! That is why it is so important for people to come to know Christ's forgiveness early in life. The longer we leave it, the more nails get pounded into our door, and the more scars there are left behind. Those scars can take longer to heal and may leave deeper holes. But it can be very hard to stop doing what is wrong, to stop hammering more nails into the door, and to change the way we are living. Paul knew this all too well, as you will see in today's reading.
"I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." Romans 7: 15-19
Like Paul, we all experience the tug to give in again to our sinful nature, but our new nature moves us to resist. What we are experiencing is a new sensitivity to sin. Since sin wants to drive a hole in us, and Christ wants to keep us unscarred by the effects of sin, it is no longer comfortable to ignore the constant pounding. Confessing our sin will always remove the nail and stop that pounding. And our awareness of our sin is also confirmation that God's Holy Spirit has truly entered our life and has come to change us. If He hadn't, we would remain numb to the nails of sin.
So – as we enter the summer break, it is my prayer for you all that you would find the time to examine your door, and be open and ready for God to come and remove the nails that are still there, and patch up the holes. May you be restored to a door of great beauty, with new purpose and fresh strength to serve the carpenter.
God bless.
Corinne Mason.
Read the Bible in a year: Psalm 88:9b-18, Hosea 6:1-7:16, Romans 7:14-8:8
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