Yer Blues

In the morning, wanna die

In the evening, wanna die

If I ain't dead already

Ooh girl you know the reason why

John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Behold, they say to me,
"Where is the word of the LORD?
Let it come!"
I have not run away from being your shepherd,
nor have I desired the day of sickness.
You know what came out of my lips;
it was before your face.
Be not a terror to me;
you are my refuge in the day of disaster.

Jeremiah 17:15-17

In my life, I have often felt despair and helplessness when I felt like I failed my Lord. So many times, we compartmentalize our faith and establish our own set of rules by which to measure our faith and spiritual growth. The truth is, we will never do anything that will cause God to love us more. Likewise, we can't sin enough to cause God to not love us and cut us off. To those He has called, He has given faith and perseveres them into a greater knowledge of His love, mercy, and grace.

Now don't get me wrong. While God is sovereign over our salvation and enables us to not only come to Him but to repent and perform good deeds, we still have a responsibility to progress our own sanctification and pursue his holiness. Paul says we are to submit our bodies to him. But what happens when we fail? How should we react to our own sinfulness as we stand before God clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ?

One thing we should not do, is despair. We will sin. We will sin a lot. We will never live up to the example that Christ has set. When I first became a Christian, I often felt that I had let God down with my sin. Sometimes I would despair and feel sorry for myself. Despair is the devil's tool to lead the Christian towards apathy and then into apostasy. He wants you to give up. He is trying to convince you that you aren't good enough or worthy enough of God's love. When we fall, we must not give up on the race. We must not allow the devil to use this despair to lead us into a spirit of self loathing and fear. While despair is a very human experience, we should take our despair captive and make it obedient to the will of Christ. We conquer the spirit of despair when allow God to use the experience to grow us and lead us closer to Him.