July 21: Heads they win, tails I lose...

2 Chronicles 4:1-6:11

Romans 7:1-13

Psalm 17:1-15

Proverbs 19:22-23

No chapter in the Bible has ever demonstrated to me the futility of self reliance to achieve salvation as Romans 7.  As I understand it, the law defines what I am not permitted, yet creates the desire in for for precisely that which is forbidden.  What is made wrong becomes desirable.  So much evidence of this - smoking which we know could lead to cancer; the one extra drink that throws us into the certainty of a raging hangover, even the extra 10 minutes that all but guarantees we are going to be getting home after curfew.  It seems rather unfair - if there wasn't a law, not only would there NOT be any law to break, but neither would we have any desire to break it.  But because there IS a law, it's heads they win, tails I lose.

Thank God I don't have to depend upon myself.  Thank God that "we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code."  thank God we can pray like David - "Hear me, Lord, my plea is just; listen to my cry...I call on you, my God, for you will answer me...show me the wonders of your great love, You who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes."

It's difficult to recognize our dependence upon God for this most basic, most essential of things - salvation from the just penalty of our sins.  May I always remember to depend on His mercy, and not on my own efforts.