Spiritual Schizophrenia (Part 1)

Every now and then, I will hear a sermon that will completely change the way I look at things for the rest of my life.  Recently, I heard a friend of mine by the name of Dale Johnson preach.  He said something that changed the way I view my walk with Christ.  His statement was this:

“When you accept Christ, God doesn’t make you good,   God declares you good through Christ.”

What’s the difference?  Paul knew exactly what this statement meant.  In the book of Romans 7, Paul writes to us as if he is a spiritual schizophrenic (someone with more than one personality living inside of him).  Here, you can plainly see that Paul is struggling with two different people:  the old man (sin) and the new man (his hope in Christ)

Many of us expect a grand transformation once we accept Christ, but it’s not that easy.  We are born in sin, and although we are forgiven of those sins through Jesus’ blood on the cross, WE STILL SIN!  Ergghh.  Isn’t that frustrating!

Paul wrote most of the New Testament and had a “Road to Damascus” conversion.  Even today, the books he wrote are preached every single Sunday in churches worldwide.  And here we see Paul, still struggling with sin.

How does this make sense?  Because we are not good.  We are only declared good through Christ.  Our sin is like Kudzu.  You can burn it, poison it, rip up the roots and it will still come back.  You can’t get rid of it.

So where does that leave us?  Our hope is in Jesus, not ourselves. In verse 15 Paul states that “I want to do good, but do what I hate.”  God changes us and it makes us want to do good, but because of our sin we still do what we don’t want to do.  It’s in our nature.

We are totally depraved.  In verse 18 Paul writes “There is nothing good in me.”  He’s right.  If not for Christ Jesus taking on sin for us, there would be no hope.  There are two people living inside of us.

The good news is we as Christians are bearing fruit.  It’s a slow process called sanctification.  God, over time is slowly changing our hearts to look more and more like Christ.  It won’t be finished until we reach heaven.  The man I am today looks different then the man I was 10 years ago.  Hopefully in 10 more years, I won’t look like I do today.  My hope is that I will look more like Christ.