Learning to Rely Upon Christ Alone

I try to be a faithful disciple of Christ. Since the day Christ saved me from the just wrath of God, I've had a desire to obey the commandments of the Father. I try to spend time in the Word daily; I try to praise and worship God with the way I live my life; I try to be loving and forgiving towards others, knowing that the forgiveness that God has granted me allows me to do the same. It's only through the grace of God and the power of the Holy Spirit that I'm able to even desire such things, let alone act upon them.

But the truth is that there are a lot of sins in my life that I struggle with. There are sins in my life that not even my closest friends and family know about. I find myself committing these horrible acts all the while thinking, "I shouldn't be doing this. This is sin." And even though I realize I'm sinning, I still do it.

After committing an act of sin, I often find myself thinking, "Why did I do that? I knew it was sin but why did I do it? Next time, I won't. I'll be obedient to Christ next time."

It's not until recently that I realized the problem in such thinking. I was saying that I have the ability to stir up enough willpower to overcome sin myself. Suddenly, I was placing faith and trust in my own flesh and mind to overcome the sin that plagues my life. Fortunately for me, God has allowed me to come across Christian blogs that have helped me to realize the errors in my thoughts. I read a post on the Thoughts on the Way blog and felt much better after reading an excerpt from Charles Spurgeon.

Take your sins to Christ’s cross, for the old man can only be crucified there: we are crucified with him. The only weapon to fight sin with is the spear which pierced the side of Jesus ... [You] must go to the cross with [your sin], and say to Jesus, “Lord, I trust thee to deliver me from it.” This is the only way to give it a death-blow ... You must be conquerors through Him who hath loved you, if conquerors at all.

Reliance upon self is the reason why I have been failing. I praise God that He loves us so much that He is willing to allow us to stumble and fall so that we might learn to seek and rely upon Him and Him alone. I praise God that He so carefully watches over His children and disciplines them at the right time, not allowing them to wander any further from the path of Christ than they already have.