Mark 9:43, “And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire.”
I’m not going to write a big description this morning in order to put more time into monthly support pictures and planning for the next animations 🙂 However, I will just mention that today’s picture is a good reminder for me of the war of faith….Pursuit of joy in Christ–the delight-driven journey to know and love the beauty of who God is in His Son more and more and more–is a battle. Often it is a vicious battle, as Christ makes clear with Mark 9’s well known and jarring Imagery.
God works in us, so we work out our salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:13-14); we are Christ’s so we press on to make Him our own (Philippians 3:12); we are already perfected even as we are being sanctified, striving for the holiness without which we will not see God (Hebrews 10:14, 12:14); we are adopted and Spirit-filled sons of God and so we make violent war against the deeds of the body in us (Romans 8:13). As these examples make clear, our fight against sin is not the REASON we our spiritually alive in Christ, however, it is the necessary RESULT of being spiritually alive in Christ. If it is not present–just as with a tree that bears no fruit and puts out no leaves year after year–we may not truly be alive.
This truth is taught throughout scripture and we must keep it–by grace–at the forefront of our minds: Satisfaction in Christ ought to inspire vicious, Gospel-trusting, Spirit-led war against sin in our lives….May the Lord give us grace to grow in these things more and more!
