Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Obedience and Victory

I want to live in victory. I am sure you do too. The idea of the victorious Christian life is so appealing. I want to live a life where I've conquered my weakness, put my besetting sins behind me and be a confident child of God. But I’ve recently come to the conclusion that striving for victory has become harmful to my obedience.

While most of us like to put on a good face, all of us struggle with sin. Externally, we commit outright sins of action or omission while internally we’re full of anger, pride, false humility, impure motives and resentment. We have addictions, bad habits and sins of character. And as good as we try to be, we’re never as good as we want to be.

Often, my prayer and my goal is identifying a sin in my life and putting it behind me. I don’t want to do that sin anymore, so I focus on giving it up for good, living free of it - victorious! Yet I don’t think that should be our focus or our goal. I recently read a quote by author Jerry Bridges that says... “God is not interested in your living in victory, he is only interested that you live in obedience.” The more I processes that statement, the more convinced I am he has an excellent point.

If I try for victory it’s easy to become discouraged when I fail. I realize that the previous eight times I made the right choice are all negated by the ninth time when I didn’t. I feel I’m always “starting over” and trying to “do better” so that I can eventually root out this sin entirely. The focus is on me, my effort and how good or bad I feel about myself.

Focusing on being victorious can also make me feel defeated because I know my own weak nature. I often think that today I can be strong, but what if I can’t find the strength to say no tomorrow? I turn the desire to live a life pleasing to God into a life that is spent trying to “do the right thing” so that I don’t feel guilty or bad about myself. Instead of putting aside sin because of my love for God and my desire to serve him, I try to achieve a life of victory that says I have conquered my sin and am now victorious.

Often, when I commit the same sin once again I feel the overwhelming desire to just give in and stop trying. There’s no sense aiming for victory when I can’t even get past this one thing I keep doing over and over. The focus on conquering sin takes all my energy and I feel too exhausted and weary to continue fighting.

The better way is to aim to live obediently. Obedience always comes down to this decision right now, in this moment. What I’ve done the last eight times doesn’t matter and what I will do tomorrow isn’t factored into the equation. Right now, as God speaks, will I obey or will I do what I want? Obedience puts the focus on God, his voice, and his will. It pulls me away from the human desire to prove myself, to show I can fix myself. He asks, commands, compels. And I respond, answer, obey.

Victory is not a bad thing. It’s what we were made for. We will all one day be victorious over sin. In our perfected bodies when Christ rules in the coming age, victory will be the reality for all believers. And it’s true that a consistent habit of obedience over time will bring victory over various sins, habits and sin patterns. But that’s the result - not the goal. It’s kinda the “gift with purchase” that comes along with obedience.

I’m finding obedience a little easier these days. Knowing that I can let God worry about the victory part gives me freedom to fail, knowing that he’ll pick me back up on the journey. Focusing on my obedience gives me confidence, understanding that following his voice will lead me to victorious living with each step I take on the obedience trail. I bring the obedience, he brings the victory! Praise God!