Sunday Lenten Meditation
“I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.”
The Apostle Paul in Romans 7:15-20
Do you resonate with the Apostle Paul?
Later in the book of Ephesians, he writes, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
There is a fight we all must confront in the spiritual realm, but this does not exist only outside of our being, but rather within ourselves. To think our bodies are just physical matter and our soul is something else, is to buy into the philosophy Platonic Dualism. It is precisely because our soul and body are intertwined, one with the other, where we must depend on someone beyond ourselves to aid us in the fight against the evil that would work to overtake us from the inside-out, not the outside-in. “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood … but against the powers of this dark world…”
Who or what do you depend on to win this fight?
During this Lenten season, as you contend with the challenge of fasting - of purging our dependencies on the things of this world and of material things to fasten our identities - may you come closer and closer to depend on God, His Spirit, and His Word.