Every reborn believer who walks in harmony with God has a limp.
We all struggle with worldly temptations and personal proclivities. To mask our pain, we sometimes indulge in unhealthy desires that overwhelm our current convictions.
As a result, we often fail to abide by God’s moral standards.
We will give up on God if we think our unrighteousness means he is ineffective, we are defective, or this “God-thing” works for a select few but not for us.
These conclusions are erroneous.
Personal iniquity evidences the Scriptural truth that we retain our sinful nature after our spiritual rebirth.
The persistence of our unrighteousness merely affirms that our salvation is a matter of God’s grace, not our personal merit.
Knots
Every reborn believer has knots of unrighteousness. Some are readily apparent and conspicuous to everyone. Others are hidden in our hearts and known only to us.
Some knots are bound tighter than others. Untying them requires earnest effort over a long period. Some knots may not completely untie until we enter heaven.
Nonetheless, we should continually strive to untie our knots as best we can with God’s help, because his highest priority is for us to know him in all his fullness.
Enlisting God in this effort has an ancillary benefit.
Each time we seek his help to untie our knots, he draws near to us. This proximity helps us recognize facets of his excellence that we previously overlooked.
Toddlers
As toddlers, we frequently fell while learning to walk.
But we stood up and tried again each time, because even at that young age, we recognized that the merits of mobility were worth the effort.
Likewise, we often fall as we walk in harmony with God.
But when we do, we should always stand up and try again because his communion satisfies our deepest longings.
God’s Foreknowledge
God chose to love us in eternity past despite his foreknowledge of all our imperfections. Nothing we will think, say, or do will ever alter his affection toward us.
His atonement for our sins—past, present, and future; intentional and unintentional; egregious and innocuous—is exhaustive and irrevocable.
His forgiveness always exceeds our sinfulness.
