My friend Ken and I were talking over coffee, discussing sin and why we don’t have consistent victory. He believed it was due to pride. "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." James 4:6 I struggled with his answer as I don’t consider myself a prideful person, yet struggle.
He came up with a more plausible answer, self-sufficiency.
I became a Christian because I found I could not conquer my failures. After I “gave my life to Him, I began efforts to “clean up my act”, to be a better person, after all, aren’t we to be “a light unto the world”. This caused me to mask my failures because I didn’t want people to know me, the person that I was before becoming a Christian, and still am.
I find that I change the outward in my own effort, my own strength but in reality, am still me.
Training from my youth tells me that “I can do it, keep trying harder, raise the bar”.
Why is it that we can’t be holy so we become Christians, then when we do, we try to figure out “how to be holy”.
Self-sufficiency is iniquity.
For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. Phil 1:6
