V-MAIL TO THE FRONTLINE
PART 8

THE AGONY OF REMAINING THE SAME

Being willing to change is (and always has been) the foundation of Christian growth and our obedience measures how much God can use us. Being able to hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit will depend on how desperate we are to know God’s will. Those who want to go deeper in God, who choose to look at themselves in the mirror before grabbing the binocular to criticize others, that resist the temptation to enjoy their own pity parties and blame everyone else for things that was their own fault, are at least heading in the right direction. Religion loves stagnation – God wants progress! There are many reasons that people refuse to change like; fear of the unknown, denial, its comfortable staying the same, pride, greed, security, the need to be in control, weakness and laziness, ego, carnality, peer pressure, family issues, and politics. But of all the many excuses not to change, one heads the list; it is thinking that change will come while we stubbornly refuse to do anything different than we always have.

Human nature is not completely ignorant as it knows the word change is another way of referring to “death”. The flesh realizes that for our will to surrender its control – the “old man” must die. But our carnality is equipped with a built-in “survival mode” and this fighting and scratching to “live” is the strong resistance we feel when we try to move closer to God. We hold on to the internal agony of sin because it has become a form of “default” security. We embrace what is known because we can see it and feel it while the proposal of a new way of living is invisible and needs faith to succeed. To trade a guaranteed pleasure for what is unknown is not a good deal to our flesh. Our old nature is so familiar and comfortable with the “merry-go-round” of sinning and repenting that it dreads the idea of having the problem fixed permanently. This is because we have become very attached to the “problem” and actually have fallen in love with it. Even though we love to hate it or hate to love it, we put up with the guilt because on the scales of anguish, the sin becomes more bearable than the miserable side-effects of it. Change will begin when the hatred of being in bondage to our carnal nature becomes STRONGER than our willingness to remain a prisoner. An amazing truth about a spiritual P.O.W.; they hold the key that can unlock their own cell door. Selah.