1 John 3:19-23 (NIV) -
This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
For those of you who don't know, I'm currently studying Classical Voice - in other words, opera. If you have even a slight familiarity with opera, you probably know that it's often sung in languages other than English, particularly Italian, German, and French, and because of this we have a class in my degree where we study diction. Rather than going to all the extent of learning 3 or more new languages, we instead learn how to pronounce each language as accurately as possible so that when we sing a song in Italian, we sound like an Italian, when we sing a song in German, we sound like a German, and so on and so forth. Then, all we have to do is find a translation of each song that we add to our repertoire to learn the meaning of the song and we have everything that we need to move forward.
While in this class earlier in the week, one of the other students was workshopping one of her pieces with our teacher. Every time that she made a mistake or did something that she didn't like or knew was wrong, she'd scrunch up her face and shake her body out as if trying to get the "wrongness" off of her. Our teacher noticed this and gently (but directly) told this student to stop reacting every time she felt she did something wrong, because reacting to it it was just going to confuse her body and distract her from making real progress. Instead, she said to slow down, focus on thinking clearly, pay attention and notice any mistakes that she made, then ask herself, "What is the mistake that I'm making, what do I want to do instead, and how do I change what I'm doing to that?"
When thinking back on this, I realised that the same thing is true of our faith. If Satan can get us reacting automatically to our mistakes and the things we do wrong - reacting with feelings of shame and condemnation, or thoughts of hiding from God and others, just to name a couple ways - then we will always be off balance and be easier to knock down yet again. But we serve a God who is greater than our thoughts and feelings. As the Scripture above says, "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." To take it a step further, Paul says in Romans that, "there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death." (Romans 8:1-2 NIV) God knew every mistake that you have made or will make since before you were born, and he still sent his Son to die on the cross. What that says to me is that God cares far more about whether or not our hearts are committed to chasing after him despite our mistakes than he is about whether or not we make them. C.S. Lewis puts it beautifully: "He wants [us] to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with [our] stumbles."
That's not to say that we shouldn't try and improve, and certainly not that God doesn't want us to. He calls us into the fullest, freest version of ourselves, and he is constantly chipping away at us to carve out the remnants of our sinful nature. He will keep doing that work in each and every one of us who calls him Lord until the day that Christ returns or we are no longer living to continue our refinement, at which point we will be finally be made whole again in the light of his glory and holiness. But if we keep trying to improve from a place of failure, uncertainty, and insecurity, it shouldn't come as a surprise when we keep tripping up repeatedly and the going seems slow. In fact, my Diction teacher made one more comment on this note: "It's unrealistic and damaging to expect ourselves to get it right on the first try. Once we step away from that mindset, we finally become free to correct what we are doing properly, and it is then that the real change begins; it is then that we are at our most powerful."
Jesus died because we couldn't get it right, and even though his death has made it possible for us to get better, we still live in a physical world. While we are still here, we have gone only from being unable to get it right, to having the grace to try without fear of failure. There are select instances where God will give people a miraculous 180-degree transformation - I have heard stories of people who knelt at the altar with a system full of drugs and alcohol, and have walked away with Christ as their Lord, the Holy Spirit in their minds, and their bodies completely emptied of all substances, or stories of people who have been instantly delivered from physical and mental health conditions and addictions of all kinds. However, most people will walk into their freedom a day at a time, simply by saying yes to God's Word and doing what he says. To expect to get it right on the first try is unrealistic and damaging. But we serve because God first served us, and we love because he first loved us. He has chosen that for those who choose him, there is no condemnation, but that, "we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him." When we remember that fact, that our deliverance doesn't come from anything that we do but from what Christ already did for us, then the real change begins; then we are at our most powerful.
So to those of you who have been battling against addictions, cycles, mental and physical health conditions, and every other consequence of sin under the sun, let me remind you: our God is greater than sin, and he is greater than our hearts. You don't need to feel shame because you are not condemned. Instead, stop for a moment, take some deep breaths, and look to the God who fights for us when we are still. (Exodus 14:14) Take your time to get back on your feet and get your feet planted on the rock, and I guarantee you that as long as you stay close to God, Satan is going to have a much harder time knocking you down than he has had so far. Keep up the good fight, my friend. This world is passing, and eternity with our King awaits for those who stand strong in Christ Jesus.
Bless you Brother