My Dear Friends,

People of God: Grace and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Saviour.

Several terms in the Epistles introduce the concept that each Christian is fighting an inner war. We live, the Bible suggests, a life of constant tension between an inner pull toward sin and an inner desire for righteousness. “Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death” (Romans 7:24)? My friends, the Apostle Paul reminds us that the daily Christian experience is full of tension.

The Christian is a captive, a captive to the body, the members of which are controlled by sin. Hence, he or she is a helpless slave of sin, and as such is under the condemnation of death. The body, the seat of the fleshly desires, has become bondage of the will to the flesh which is the condition of the natural man, and closes with the cry for deliverance.

Fellow Lenten sojourners, we can certainly identify with Paul when he laments, “I don’t understand my own actions. I don’t do what I want; I do the very thing I hate. Because I don’t want to do the things I do, it’s clear that I agree that what the law says is good and right. I’m that much in harmony with God. But somehow I’m not in control of my own actions! Some sinful force within takes over and acts through my body. I know that nothing good exists in the old me. The sin nature is so distorted that even when I desire good I somehow can’t do it. Sin, dwelling in me, is to blame for this situation. It all seems so hopeless! The fact is that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. In my inmost self I delight in God’s law. But another principle wars with the desire to obey and bring me to my knees, a captive to the principle of indwelling sin.”

Is there some temptation or sin which seems to have a grip on your own life? How did you try to resolve this transgression?  Did you try to fight it in your own strength? My brothers and sisters, instead of trying to overcome sin with human self-control, we must take hold of the tremendous power of Christ that is available to us. This is God’s provision for victory over sin. He sends the Holy Spirit to live in us and give us power. It is the Spirit of God within us, who raised Jesus from the dead, who is able to lift us up too, to a new and righteous kind of living.

The grace of our lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.

                                                                Fr. Raliville Christian.    

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