"God will never take away your struggles. Instead he will take its place." -David Gungor

If you are a follower of Christ, and yield your life to him, then like me you've become painfully aware of some of the drawbacks of our humanity.
We can draw this back to the garden, as we do with many things as we look at them biblically. Man sinned, and therefore man was born into that disease, if you will. Praise God that he sent his son to die for us to set us free from sin. But we know that when we accept Christ, we don't lose the capability of sinning, rather, we have found the means which we can be rid of it, and commune with our father.

So what do we do? We are in the middle of two different thoughts. We are saved by grace, and our sins are covered. But yet Christ calls us to be holy. To die to the sinful nature. We can sometimes find ourselves stuck like this in what we call our iniquities - our sin cycles. Even Paul found himself caught in this:

Romans 7:18 (NLV)
"I know i am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way i turn, i can't make myself do right. I want to, but i can't. When i want to do good, i don't. And when i try not to do wrong, i do it anyway. But if i do what i don't want to do, i am not really the one doing it; the sin within me is doing it.
It seems to be a fact of life that when i want to do what is right, i inevitably do what is wrong. I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh what a miserable person i am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?"

This is where we find ourselves. This is where i find myself. This is where Paul found himself. We're doing what we hate, and not doing what we want. Our sanctified spirits are crying out against the sin we do, but we keep doing it. At the end there he says 'Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?'
The next verse brings hope, friends.

"Thank GOD! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord."

Christ is our answer. Let us put our hope in him as we refine ourselves to be more like him. In our times when we fall short of the Glory, let us look to him for grace. I once wrote that forgiveness pardons the sin, but Grace can change the sinner. And that is so true. Let us run to God when we sin, not away from him. And in our moments of temptation, let us draw upon him for strength, and pray. Didn't Christ instruct the disciples on the mount of olives to pray, that they would not fall into temptation?

So Christ is the answer to the shortcomings of our humanity. I hope this has spoken hope to you if your struggling with something, anything.

[Emmett]