Chapter 2 of Thin Within

I truly believe that the Lord has lead me to the TW study at just this very moment in time. One of the focuses already is FREEDOM IN CHRIST. This is an amazing, wonderful, miraculous, awesome, humbling and eternal Truth. Christ loves me exactly as I am in this moment. There is NO CONDEMNATION. These things seem basic to me now, but in years past I didn't understand them.

My mom has called me a perfectionist. I do try really hard at things and I want my effort to be fruitful. That sounds ok, right? I've also had moments of hissy-fits when things don't go my way and I am my own harshest critic (I had originally written "hardest", but I think "harshest" is the more accurate term). I have a bit of an extremist personality - all or nothing. For me, my performance mattered a lot (and, at times, it still matters to me).

During my first several years as a Christian in high school and then in college I heard a lot about grace, but I didn't know how to give it balance in my life. Either I would allow no room for grace and I wore myself out trying to live the Christian life, or I gave so much room to grace that my behavior was null and void.

I then began to learn about living the Christian life from the Bible's perspective. Take Romans 6 (I've copied it from biblegateway.com, NIV):

1What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
5If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.
8Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
11In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. 14For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. 15What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! 16Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? 17But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. 18You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
19I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. 20When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. 21What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! 22But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. 23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Because I am alive in Christ I am dead to sin. Life and death. The two are not compatible. Ok, that makes sense, but how (as Beth Moore says) "do I do the thing"? How do I not choose sin? How do I choose Him, His will, His way?

Ephesians 1:11-14
11In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, 12in order that we, who were the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. 13And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.

It sounds like I don't do anything. It sounds like I was predestined, I was included, I was marked with a seal. The only thing I did was believe. The rest was done for me by God Himself. The truth is, I am totally unable to live the Christian life. My flesh doesn't believe in freedom because of its bondage to sin. My flesh can't grasp grace because it only knows performance. Me, Yvonne, I am incapable of doing anything that the Lord calls me to. HOWEVER, I have the Spirit of the God of the universe dwelling in me. He is my hope and ability:

Colossians 1:27
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

A recent study through Ephesians has helped me understand that it is all about what God has done, what He continues to do and what He will do with me. He only asks me to believe (the right stuff, of course!)

Ephesians 2:1-10
1As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, 2in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. 3All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. 4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.