Recently I had a conversation with someone who was troubled because they kept on doing things that they knew to be wrong or harmful.  This person was really discouraged because he really wanted to do right to live a Christian life and yet kept falling back into the old patterns of self-centered behavior.

It seems fair to say that we all have this problem crop up from time to time…

The upshot was that the man took great comfort in the notion that he really couldn’t possibly avoid the problem because he would never be ‘perfect’ in this life anyway, so even though he didn’t want to do certain things it was really no big deal if he did them anyway.  He’d just prefer not to.

It struck me that many of our teachers and preachers have done a disservice to their flocks over the years by stressing that our transformation will be complete when Jesus returns and thus giving the impression to many that this means that they don’t have to work to be a follower of Christ in the here and now; at least they don’t need to work very hard at it.  I realize that they aren’t giving this impression purposefully, and that by kind of soft pedaling on this point they are hoping to avoid their people being discouraged… Yes, I get all that.

The disservice is this:  Their people, or at least some of them seem to figure that they will let Jesus handle everything in their lives later, and they don’t really follow Him now.  I would agree that He will handle them later…

There are many verses in the New Testament that tell us this is not the way to go; here’s an example:

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.

Galatians 5:16

There is nothing “future” about this statement; it is a present imperative, a command.  If it can be commanded it can be done.  Live by the Spirit; how else can you grow in your faith?  Certainly not by living in the sinful nature; certainly not by being self-indulgent.

It is true that such living ((by the Spirit) is a growth process that takes time to develop into maturity, but not doing so won’t grow anything at all.  Some like to say that we can’t do anything on our own, and I normally agree with that principle, but what part of “by the Spirit” is doing things on our own?  The answer is that only the commitment to do so is on our own, and even that will become more and more “by the Spirit” as time moves forward.