Abiding and Delivering

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Abiding and Delivering

Romans 7:25

Romans 7:25 (NASB)

25 “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.”

There is a deliverance! Paul knew it and answered, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:25). George Fox knew it and said, “I clearly saw that all was done and to be done in and by Christ; and that He conquers and destroys this tempter the devil, and all his works, and is atop of him. My living faith was raised that I saw all was done by Christ the life, and my belief was in Him.” Thousands of Christians in all ages have known Christ’s great deliverance and have rejoiced to testify of its wondrous blessedness.

Christ’s death purchased for us not only the forgiveness of our sins but also victory over them—not only freedom from their guilt but freedom from their power as well. Faith in Christ will bring us much besides salvation from eternal condemnation. Because we try to live our lives apart from Him, we fail. We realize that He gives us life in the first place, but we do not see that He also must live it for us. We trust Him for the forgiveness of our sins, but we trust ourselves for the daily conquering of them. We pray for divine aid and for the influence of the Holy Spirit, but still our thought is that they are to be given to us that we might fight and conquer. This is the secret of our failures.

We are as helpless in the matter of sanctification as in the matter of justification. We are as thoroughly cast on Christ for the control of an irritable temper as for the pardon of all our sins. Christ must be all in all to us every moment. “For apart from me,” He says, “you can do nothing” (John 15:5). This is the secret of peace and victory.

John 15:5 (NASB)

5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”