Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Romans 7:24-25 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!
FANATICAL FOR JESUS!
Pro football fan? How did your favorite team do last weekend? Is your season off to a good start? Or were you admonished for yelling at the TV?
The desire for a favorite sports team to win can be intense. Fans can be, well, fanatical! St. Paul seems to have been a bit of a sports-nut. In his epistles he refers to things like races, wrestling, and boxing. But Paul was most fanatical about serving his Lord Jesus Christ! When it came to serving Jesus, Paul wanted to win. He wanted to win over sin and glorify Jesus in all he said and did. He wanted to run a perfect race for the One Who died for Him and rose again.
We all feel like Paul. Our new man does anyway. The problem is that we also have an old man. As regenerated children of God we want to win for Jesus; but, as people who still have a sinful nature clinging to us, we are found to be big losers. Instead of winning, we keep on sinning!
Can't you see Paul hanging his head and muttering, "What a wretched man I am!"? Paul wanted every new day to be the perfect day -- a day in which he ran the perfect race for Christ. But it just wasn't happening. Like the runner who can't seem to improve his time no matter how much effort he puts into it, Paul just wasn't running that perfect race for Jesus. He wasn't even close to doing so. In fact, when Paul really took a good hard look at himself, he could only cry out: "Who will deliver me from this body of death?"
Yet Paul knew the answer to his question. With a big sigh of relief he cries out: "Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!" Despite our sin we are winners in Him. Christ forgives us fully and freely. His certain promise is the prize of everlasting life waiting for us in heaven. In fact, in Christ we have already won the race! That's why Paul, why every Christian, is so fanatical about Jesus. Jesus loves us so much and has done so much for us that we can't help trying to run the perfect race for Him. But at the end of the day we'll be back where we started, knowing that we need a Savior as much as ever, and thanking God we have one!
