The Power of His Resurrection - February 19th, 2009

Rom.7:18-20 - “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do - this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Paul describes the human condition - nothing good dwells in me and the good I want to do I can’t. That is the reality of what we’re dealing with yet the predominant message from the pulpit is when tempted, resist harder, when struggling, fight harder, when stuck, push harder and when slipping run harder. If it didn’t work before how in the world will it work when I try harder? All our current “encouragement” is centered around rehabbing the flesh in which “nothing good lives.” That won’t work. The reason we’re in that boat is that we’ve catered so much for so long to the individual and his flesh, afraid to tell people the self must die and be replaced by the very life of Christ (Gal.2:20), in the Power of His Spirit (Eph.5:18). Tozer put it this way: “In every Christian’s heart there is a cross and a throne and the Christian is on the throne till he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross he remains on the throne. Perhaps this is at the bottom of the backsliding and worldliness among gospel believers today. We want to be saved but insist Christ do all the dying…we doom ourselves to shadows, weakness and spiritual sterility.” The power of His resurrection is only found in conformity to His death (Phil.3:10). If we want to multiply spiritual multipliers we have to start preaching that.