Organize your heart to make room for Jesus

July 9, 2025

Maria John 8, the Heart , Leave a comment

…you have no room for my word. John 8:37 NIV

When I taught French in middle and high school I learned not to give any explanation of why something was expressed a certain way. Unless asked.  Students usually didn’t want or need to know more than what something meant. 

Can you pick up that I did not teach French using the old-fashioned ways of focusing on grammar and vocabulary. I was after language acquisition. I wanted students to have the language living inside of them, so it could emerge naturally. Afterall, isn’t that why anyone would want to learn a language, so they can communicate with someone?  Mistakes and all? 

Yet, when a student DID ask me a question, I recognized right away that he had found a space in his brain to receive a very short and precise explanation.  He was receptive and ready to digest something new.

This morning I saw the parallel principle at work in John.  Jesus is explaining why those questioning Him don’t believe His teachings.  Their minds are so taken with the idea of being descendents of Abraham, that they have no space to consider a new doctrine. Five verses earlier as John records, Jesus had said: 

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Each morning I take in God’s word.  But maybe I don’t have freed-up space to notice something I previously overlooked. 

I’m motivated now to ask for the Spirit’s help tomorrow morning. May He clean up and perhaps order my heart’s understanding so I can be open to receiving pure Gospel truth whether from the Old Testament or the New. That way I can grow and become more fluent in Gospel Hope. 

What’s this ‘joy’ we’re supposed to feel?

September 14, 2023

Maria 1 Thessalonians 5, Hebrews 12, John 4, John 8, Joy, Nehemiah 8, Rejoicing 1 Comment

Rejoice always, 1 Thessalonians 5:16 NIV

….the joy of the LORD is your strength!  Nehemiah 8:10 NIV

The Bible commands us in multiple places to rejoice in God’s goodness. Wait a minute….isn’t joy a feeling?  How can someone command a feeling?  And what about Nehemiah’s flat-out declaration about the source of our joy? What do we make of that? For instance, what does ‘of’ mean?  Does it refer to joy FROM God or God’s OWN joy?

I found one clue in Hebrews 12:2:  Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. (NLT)

What do you think that future joy refers to?  Numerous possibilities likely exist about what would have made Jesus glad and supremely happy. I’ve selected two quotes from our Lord where he mentions what motivates him, that of finding pleasure in doing his father’s will.

I always do what pleases Him. John 8:29 BSB

My food (what satisfies me) is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work. John 4:34 BSB

Therefore, since we recognize that by carrying out his father’s will Jesus would bring him pleasure, we can picture our Lord anticipating his future experience of his Father’s beaming joy.  A huge celebration waited to kick off his return to the center of divine and happy glory within the trinity.

Another understanding of our Savior’s joy could be his happy and sure reality of one day very soon having us, his brothers and sisters, with him for all of time.

Keeping in mind those two possibilities of the source of the Christ’s future joy, I take Nehemiah’s words to mean the following.  In knowing that by completing the Father’s mission to redeem a people to be with him forever, Jesus endured the suffering because the end result would bring him ‘joy’.

He knew that in completing the law’s requirements to satisfy the Father’s justice (our sin being paid for plus perfect completion of the law for us) our successful journey to that other world would be guaranteed. We, the ones for whom Jesus lived and died, receive the privilege of living with the divine family forever.

So, how do I connect Jesus’ purpose-driven life and death with ‘the joy of the Lord is our strength’?

Let’s go back to Hebrews 12:1 and the first part of verse 2, right before the author talks about Jesus’ joy motivation.

Therefore, since we also have such a great cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let’s rid ourselves of every obstacle and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking only at Jesus, the originator and perfecter of the faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. (NASB)

I reason like this:  If enduring that hell of an experience for me brought Jesus joy, given his and his father’s goals and plans for us, then recalling his joy gives me enough confidence-building strength.  What do I need this strength for? Each day you and I bear suffering, our own and that of others we care for.  We need a lot of power to remain uncomplaining and cheerful in the daily trials assigned to us. Jesus’ perspective and goals and how he viewed the purpose of his own ‘staying put’ on the cross can fill us with energy we need to continue on.

How do we fill up or receive this power?  By directing our thoughts to Jesus on the cross.  This is what ‘looking only at Jesus’ means.

I find this explanation for ‘the joy of the Lord’ and ‘rejoice always’ a relief.  Because if I were to depend on my ability to rejoice, I’d feel dismayed most of the time. I don’t have it within me to FEEL joy. But remembering Jesus’ joy gives me hope, a thankful gladness and the lightness I need to carry on.

Slave to what? Slave to whom?

July 29, 2023

Maria 2 Corinthians 3, Acts 17, Freedom, Galatians 5, God's love, Holy Light, John 8, Kingdom of God, Love, Slavery , , , , , Leave a comment

Suppose I remark, “Say, friend, you claim to be a Christian, a believer and follower of Christ. Let me ask you; do you live as someone whose freedom Jesus died for?”

Your first response should be, “Maria, what do you mean by ‘free’? What freedom are you talking about?” 

I would explain, “I mean to what or to whom do you conform?” 

You might not be able to respond to my abrupt question. Or you may defensively shoot back, as did the Pharisees to Jesus, “Of course, I’m free!  Do you think I’m a slave or something?”

That’s no surprise. Often, we lack awareness of what really drives our behavior.

I’m not one to conform to societal pressures, but I am skilled at keeping myself on a short leash, one that is self-imposed.    

I thank God that three years ago, he broke into my little prison and started expanding my boundary lines. Having been released from bulimia earlier, and definitely not anorexic, I had, however, become skilled in a different form of food slavery, ‘orthorexia’.  That’s the concept that there is only ONE right way to eat.  It’s all about control in order to feel safe.

Against my desires at the time, the Lord started shining a light in my darkness. He perfectly timed some rational observations from three different people. My creative and dear friend shared truth about me, using gentle images. Then two loving family members boldly confronted me with uncomfortable truth about patterns of behavior I had developed over time.

Gradually, I have made significant strides and DO feel freer. But as we know, all growth hurts. For me, stage one of this providential forced change dealt with food and some rigid daily ‘routines’. But I now see there has remained another dark area I didn’t recognize.

‘In the fullness of time’, the Holy Spirit said, in effect, “Let’s examine some more of your self-imposed rules and practices.” More ‘freedom’ work beckoned.

Saying ‘yes’ to God’s loving invitation to greater liberty, I now sense that I am on a train speeding me toward a new place, where there are NO rules or laws, just a Person named Jesus. And his rule is Love. Love God and love others.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not be encumbered once more by a yoke of slavery. Galatians 5:1

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 2 Cor 3:17

….. if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36

(all 3 from Berean Standard Bible)

Just what do I mean by being free?  What are we freed from?  We need questions like this to help us identify lies we believe. Especially those false narratives we tell ourselves. We create stories based on insecurities, fears, pressure we sense, resentments, envy, anxieties etc.

God is changing my perspective via books, podcasts, and conversations he sovereignly brings across my path. Like the good Bereans who examined God’s word for themselves when they encountered new teaching from Paul, (Acts 17:11), I now see principles and promises in the bible whose significance has taken on new meaning.

The freedom I am slowly embracing as I continue to meditate and study is beginning to release me from two categories of expectations. The first group are those standards of conformity that either I believe I SHOULD meet, the kind I imagine people have explicitly laid on me. 

The other group are actually more deadly, because those drivers of behavior bury themselves in one’s subconscious.  They are the unnoticed, unarticulated, and unevaluated.  Only when we have the guts and force ourselves honestly to bring to Jesus’ light our thoughts, our judgements and our self-woven narratives, can we judge whether they are true.

Right now, I am focused on noticing and breaking free of the ball and chains Maria has placed on herself.  One by one, the Lord is guiding me to identify and evaluate these controlling rules or boundaries.  I’m asking “Were those chosen habits fear-based or love-based?” Control is all about fear.

Each day, I feel a bit lighter, whetting a hunger for more of this freedom for which Christ died.

But here’s the ‘twist’.  Reread how Paul taught the Galatians in Chapter 5, pleading: “Don’t go back to your old slave master of rule-based righteousness.  Live in the freedom which you experienced upon hearing the good news of free grace. I know you Galatians, how you accepted Jesus’ offer of life and stepped away from the yoke of oppression.”

Paul obviously is free, yet in at least three places in the New Testament, (Romans 1:1….Titus 1:1….Galatians 1:10) he described himself as a ‘slave of Christ’, a doulos.

What’s up with that? Ah, this is the beauty of the distinction.  Paul was no slave to a set of rules, but he willingly gave himself to a living Person to be his servant. Out of stupefied wonder at God’s electing love and grace.

We, too, are no longer slaves to a system of rules.  We live in a new category called beLOVED ‘son/daughter’ and ‘bondservant and friend to Jesus.

Where does someone start? Where is the entry point to this Kingdom of the Freed?  There’s one narrow door or gate by which we gain access. And it is purposefully narrow.  If someone still carries ‘baggage’, he won’t be able to pass through. You know, those costumes of carefully-crafted identities and self-righteousness coverings.  No, we must come naked, just as we are in reality. We step out of crafted coverings into this new world spacious and lush, but with boundary lines of love whose design guards our freedom.

As bondservants, we keep our eyes on King Jesus who is Love personified. We, always refer to him for direction, wisdom, provision and help.

Now doesn’t that sound inviting?  Come! Won’t you join me on this quest for true freedom? We need each other to remind us of the liberty we actually possess.

Discouragement comes from the Devil

October 24, 2018

Maria John 8, Nehemiah 4, Satan , , , Leave a comment

John 8:44 – You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

It happened again! And only 3 weeks since I wrote a post about this SAME struggle.

Monday morning.  Almost the end of October.  Questioning what I’m doing, still teaching French.  To middle-schoolers.  Driving almost an hour.  Dark when I leave. Away from home nearly 12 hours a day.

Feeling trapped.  And ineffective.  Maybe I’m too old to connect with squirmy middles-schoolers!?  But what else can I do for work?

That was my day.  And evening.

But God!  It took me 24 hours to spot the lies.  These were not MY dismal thoughts.  They were from Satan.  Again!

What opened my eyes?  God’s good and providential assigned scripture in our Chronological Bible reading plan. For He had appointed Chapters 7 and 8 of the Gospel of John for me for Tuesday!!!  I arrived at the verse cited above about the devil.  The darkness lifted.

These musings? NOT from me!  Satan had fired discouraging thoughts MEANT to drive me away. From where God has me assigned for ‘such a time as this‘.  (however LONG ‘this’ turns out to be).  I don’t have to believe them.  Or take them to heart.

Two other factors helped set me up to feel ‘hope-less’.  I was tired, having not slept well for several days. And I was having a few gastro problems.

Note to self:  when I am tired or not feeling well, expect discouragement.  Malaise can feel SO self-sourced.

This week’s skirmish did not involve any ally of Satan’s.  This experienced Liar used silent killer thoughts to drain both my energy and desire to continue teaching French.  In my secular school.  Where many of my colleagues need a listening ear.  Where I can drop Good News seeds of truth about the Living Hope who is available to all. All of a sudden God opened the eyes of my heart to SEE reality.

Sometimes Satan involves other humans to silence and stop us.  Like Sanballat who labored to stymie Nehemiah in order to halt the rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem. Neh 4:1 When Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became angry and was greatly incensed. He ridiculed the Jews. But Nehemiah and his men did not cease their mission.  They did not succumb to discouraging and fear-inducing lies.

Father, awaken me immediately to future deception before it saps my peace, my contentment and confidence in You!

 

Functional Pauper

January 8, 2018

Maria 1 Corinthians, Confession, Contentment, Conviction, God's Word, John 8, Joshua, Lord's Supper, Psalm 23, Self-justification, Trusting God, Truth, Unbelief , , , , , , 2 Comments

Joshua 5:12: The manna ceased on the day after they had eaten some of the produce of the land, so that the sons of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate some of the yield of the land of Canaan during that year.

The point of this verse is that God provided food each and every day, even AND MOST ESPECIALLY during the transition from a wandering tribe to a settling-down people.

If God so sustained the complaining, idolatrous, disbelieving Hebrews, will He not all the more provide for me, for whom He has already died?

You would think that I would understand the logic of this example.  I do, but I still don’t trust God.  Not really.

I’m a FIVE on the Enneagram.  I’ve written before how helpful I find this way of understanding oneself.  As a FIVE, I see life and live from out of the lens of scarcity; I hoard time above all.  I also hold tight to money.

God has recently convicted me of what this hoarding represents – the sin of UNBELIEF!  Operating out of insufficient resources is my day-to-day norm.  Whether at school (I don’t think I have enough time to get all this planning done) or in the evenings with the dinner prep (preparing whole foods takes time, and YES, I realize it’s a choice I make) or even on Sunday afternoons, the time I catch up with church committee work and a phone call to a friend or family member. Bottom line, I never feel/believe/trust God that He will provide enough time to get done all that I think is necessary.

Before you think I might simply need some lessons in time management, I want you to know that I have LEARNED to be content with the tasks that don’t get completed. I somehow am able to trust God’s plan for my day regarding what gets done.  The problem is this:  I can’t cast off that feeling of pressure.  I catch myself rushing, attempting to speed up my pace in order to shorten the overall time it takes for each task.  And I don’t LIKE that.

I know rushing is wrong.  I can FEEL it. I hate it. Yet, like Paul, I do the things I don’t want to do.  Even though I know the truth.  And just why can’t I LIVE what I believe? Why do I find it so hard to trust Jesus’ assurance that ‘If one knows the truth, it will set one free’? (John 8:32)

This unbelief spreads tangled roots that smooth the path for deceitful lying. Saturday, I found myself in dialogue with God, planning and carrying out something that would require deception on my part.  I returned a product to a grocery store that I had not purchased there, but one they carried. To make it even more shameful, it was a product I had ordered from Amazon. They had shipped the wrong product and refunded me the $5.76 and said I didn’t need to return the incorrect items.  Somehow I believed that gaining an EXTRA $5.76 would make a difference in my life.  I knew it was wrong.  And I did it anyway.  The self-justifying litany continued OUT of the store, money in hand, all the way to the car.  But then came the Lord’s Supper, yesterday, in church.  As I was contemplating Jesus dying for my sins, He kindly shone the spotlight on yesterday’s ‘LITTLE’ episode so I could confess it and come clean.

Not to drop the matter before He was sure I had internalized the lesson, this morning, Jesus returned to the subject by whispering in my mind’s ear: “You could have donated those two bags of dried black-eyed peas that you didn’t want.”  One of my ‘justifying’ excuses for my deceit had been, “What am I going to do with these legumes I don’t like and that I didn’t order?”

Mike left me an encouraging word this morning on our frig whiteboard.   He had remembered my discouragement last night about my lingering scarcity mindset.  He reminded me to pick a promise from God and then count on Him to fulfill it.

Sure enough, God brought just the appropriate Word during my quiet time: Psalm 23:1

  • The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall lack NOTHING.

What comfort!  What power!  The truth is this; I’m sure you can follow the logic:

  •       If God created all time and matter
  •       and If He has adopted me into His forever family
  •      Then, He will provide for me

He will provide THE precise quantity of time and money that HE knows is best, not what I think.

I’ll let Ken Boa have the last word.  I read in his latest Reflections something that is apparent but which I had never considered.  Quoting 1 Cor 6:19b-20a You were bought with a price; you are not your own, Boa wrote, “God has invested a lot in you already!”

What a reassuring fact!  It follows from God’s investment of Jesus, the most valuable person in Eternity, that He is going to take GOOD care of me.

God help me to relax and just be a little lamb moving about and lying down at your direction.

The cost of trusting God

April 9, 2017

Maria Isaiah 64, John 8, Mark 15, Matthew 4, Pain, Patience, Romans 8, Sovereignty of God, Struggles, suffering, Trials, Trusting God, Truth, Waiting , , , , 8 Comments

Charles Spurgeon: “(do) You want to see….how (affliction) can bring good to the soul; you must believe it.  Honor God by trusting him.” (as tweeted by Randy Alcorn, 20 Mar 2017)

So many friends waiting, waiting, waiting.

There’s D, whose husband got let go from his job at age 61.  It’s been 3 months and he’s gone through two REALLY promising and lengthy job interviews.  Only to hear back in emails, ‘Thank you for your interest, but we’ve decided to go with someone else.”

In addition to my friend D, several other friends pray for, search and await jobs.

And then there is J who holds on for a solution to a leak in her roof.  It’s not like she and her husband have oodles of money in savings, available to try first one remedy or another. That’s part of the problem.  The house has turned into a money pit, drawing from their retirement funds. They believe they should sell it to protect their savings.  But they can’t list the house until the leak is repaired.  Biding their time, they communicate, encourage and remind contractors, hopeful that each successive remedy will be THE one.

My other friend has endured countless medical procedures and tests and been the subject of panels of medical boards convening to seek the best way forward for an aggressive cancer.  Chosen routes have revealed dead ends.  Patience, while suffering, is her familiar journey partner.

Trying, painful situations hit believers and non-believers alike. We could despair, were it not for knowing the Truth.  For as Jesus teaches, “…you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”  John 8:32  

What is that truth that blocks our natural response to fall into a gloomy permanent pit? That God loves us and that the suffering has a good purpose!  That He has planned each trial to conform us to our older brother, Jesus.  To avail ourselves of that truth, God has given us FAITH to believe the manifold and rich promises that are the rightful property or resource of all who ‘love God and are called by Him, according to His purposeful plan.’ (Romans 8:28)

Just as we have been given physical muscles to exercise in daily life, so too have Christians been given the spiritual muscle of faith.  But the gift of believing God comes with a concomitant responsibility.  We have to use faith, to move out, do what is good in the moment, depending on the invisible but real promises that God will come through just as His word says. We have to exercise or actively depend on God’s written pledge to provide, protect, guide, comfort us.

How do we do that?  By deciding to ‘believe (sight unseen) every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (Matt 4:4).  And that FEELS costly and painful at times.

Who doesn’t suffer the pains of temptation to despair over circumstances that seem to be perpetual?  Yet God commands us to not look at the way things appear, but to see through the circumstances to the God who promises good to those who believe Him and cling to the truth of His promises.

The other night as we were discussing the day’s Bible readings, Mike and I pondered the the connection between trusting…..believing…..expecting…..waiting ….hoping…exercising patience……  All these actions sparkle as many sides of the one diamond called FAITH in God.  But what do those actions LOOK like?  How do you DO expecting, waiting, hoping….?

An insight has recently enriched my mind, an answer to a dilemma. I’ve often struggled to grasp how to live out Jesus’ command, in a self-deflecting, God-glorifying way: “…. let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  Matt 5:16    I’ve gotten hung up on the concept, ‘your light’.  How can I have any light in myself?  The answer: this ‘light’ is the gift God has given me to BELIEVE Him.  My responsibility is to show the world in a visible way (light) how much I treasure this invisible but precious reality of relying on and belonging to Jesus. God calls that way ‘patience’ or ‘trust in God’.

Given that He commands me to make visible this divine, inner light, I pray daily to WANT to do just that (and follow through) a – to live in such a way that the world (my colleagues, family and friends) sees my Godward trust, hope-filled expectations, and patient waiting and be STUNNED and chalk it up to God!  (that Maria is so patient during suffering.  She must REALLY love her God and be satisfied by Him!!!)

Patience is a virtue recognized in the western world.  Yet most joke about it and cavalierly let themselves off the hook by admitting they have little.

When I feel strong, I affirm this fact:  God is kind to give me multiple occasions to practice and improve this muscle of contented waiting on Him.  Yet, I seem often to succumb to despair, sometimes multiple times in a week.

But what other choice do you and I have? We can either face the sufferings in life kicking and screaming, or we can submit to the wise and loving hand of the potter who keeps us on His wheel and won’t stop until we are beautifully fashioned into the family likeness.

Potters' Hands

This last truth stunned me this morning when I heard it again: Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Isaiah 64:4

One-year anniversary of freedom

December 5, 2016

Maria Freedom, Holy Spirit, John 8, Prayer, Unbelief , , , , 1 Comment

Scales in bathroom

It was a year ago today, 5 December 2015 that I walked away from my self-imposed dungeon sentence of measuring my worth by what I weigh.  I had lived in that dark and despair-filled place since my junior year in high school. And I’m almost 60!

But after MANY years of pain and many attempts to free myself, God gave me the courage to let the scales and a number go.

I have felt SO free this year.  No more early morning self-condemnation.

Instead, I TRY to measure my day by pleasing Him.  How?

  • by relying on His Spirit to do every task in the day.

Do I forget?  Yes, but encouragement from other Christians retools my focus. Just last week a gal wrote about battling unbelief.  The takeaway for me from her article was this:

Each hour I DON’T pray, I’m saying to God:  “I got this next hour, God.  I don’t need your help!”

John 8:36 – So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free

A radical solution to my ‘red lizard of sin’

April 26, 2015

Maria Galatians, James, John 8, Sin, Slavery , , , , , , , 4 Comments

red lizard of sin  It can be reassuring to be surprised by what one reads. Reassuring because I’m encouraged to know God has plenty for me still to learn; therefore, there is no danger of growing bored!  But surprises can also deliver blows to the solar plexus.

It was just a few nights ago, April 23rd to be exact, when I opened up Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional classic. See the text here. Dishes done, I relaxed cozily into a favorite spot on the sofa, coffee in hand, relishing the time to read.  The Holy Spirit had anything but a peaceful few minutes in store for me.  ‘Au contraire!’ A mini-torrent of conflicting thoughts captured my full attention.  Spurgeon opened like this:

“We go to Christ for forgiveness, and then too often look to the law for power to fight our sins.”  Thereupon followed quotes from Paul’s letter to the Galatians, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”

Illustrating his point by using the example of the sin of an angry temper, Spurgeon pressed on, saying in essence, STOP trying to cope with the evil of the temper yourself (through willpower and good intentions) but deal with it in the same way that you trusted God for your salvation.

Curious and so far, in agreement, I read on.  Spurgeon’s verbs grew fierce.  He wasn’t talking about reducing the frequency or minimizing the damage from this sin, but KILLING it.  How? – By taking it to the cross for JESUS to give the deathblow.

About to sputter back, No thank you! I’m handling my sins in my own sweet time, with help from the Holy Spirit, I shut my mouth.  The Holy Spirit, through the bold words of this London preacher, had cut me off: I realized that WERE I to hand over a sin to Jesus to kill, FIRST OF ALL, I’d have to:

  • name the sin
  • then actually be willing to relinquish it, ALL of it!

Lock, stock and barrel

What’s the big deal, Maria?  Don’t you WANT to be free from your # One sin?

Well….., I’m not sure.  You see, over the past few days as I have I thought about what that FIRST besetting sin is, I have come to understand that before I hand it over, I actually must NAME it………

Drum roll copy

as……..(and this is embarrassing!)

  • the sin of being preoccupied with myself – of thinking of ME and what I want before I think of anything or anyone else.

When I thought of the occasional GOOD days when I TRY to be ‘other-centered’, those efforts don’t do anything more than assuage my conscience.  Resolves and self-control DON’T decrease my desire for and pleasure in indulging this sin – thinking about ME!  My ‘attempts to be good’ just make me feel self-righteous (more preoccupation with #1!)

Just when I was about to despair over this perpetual cycle, I heard a reminder of Jesus’ commitment to set us free with His truth! Jesus names sin for what it is – SLAVERY!  (John 8:32-34)  His audience sputters and reacts predictably (like me!) that as Abraham’s children, they’ve never been slaves. But Jesus counters with this shocking statement:

Whoever commits and practices sin is the slave of sin.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be enslaved any more.  So (picking up with Spurgeon’s reasoning) here is how to deal with this sin – trust Jesus to kill it just as we trusted Him to save us.  We can’t do either (save our souls, or spring free from sin), BUT we can turn to Him, trust Him and give Him free rein.

To that end, Spurgeon instructs us how to pray:

  • Lord, I have trusted You, and Your name is Jesus, for You save Your people from their sins. Lord, this is one of my sins; save me from it!”

Finally, as an ‘Amen’ Spurgeon eliminates all escape routes: “Your prayers, and your repentances, and your tears – the whole of them put together – are worth NOTHING apart from Him.  Only Jesus can do helpless sinners good, and helpless saints too.”

If you’ve read this far, you might be wondering what the red lizard at the start of this post symbolizes.  He embodies ‘sin’ on the shoulder of a fictional character in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce. Read about how God kills THAT creature, thereby freeing the poor soul from bondage.

Passage here

A couple of conclusions I have drawn about this sin of shameless preoccupation:

  • I’m not the one to kill sin, Jesus is.  I just have to hand it over to Him.
  • For, the forceful sway of each and every sin has already been severed.  Jesus gripped that true indictment of Maria in His hand when the nail pierced it (and ALL the sins of His to-be-adopted brothers and sisters).
  • The power comes from re-calling the historical and effectual fact of the Cross

All that remains is to go out and enjoy new freedom, walking with the one and only champion and liberator, and heralding to all who would listen this good news.