Every week we partake of the Lord’s Supper and remember the sacrifice of Christ. But it is not this alone which motivates the Christian life. Although we remember and appreciate his sacrifice on our behalf, some of us feel unable to change for the better. At times we feel trapped in our sin. He may have delivered us from the guilt of sin, but we seem to remain under the power of sin. Appreciation of a past gift may not empower us to overcome sin in the present – especially since the world so often tells us that we cannot resist temptation.
In his book Like Christ, Andrew Murray wrote, “It is not the remembrance of what Jesus has once done to me, but the living experience of what He is now to me, that will give me the power to act like him.” In this statement, Murray is not just expressing his opinion, he is echoing various statements of scripture. The Bible does not merely call on us to overcome the power of sin. It tells us that the Lord will enable us to do so.
God promises, “I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26, ESV). Yes, we may often be tested beyond our strength (2 Cor 1:8), that is why we are told to “be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might” (Eph 6:10).
Our problem is sometimes that we try to overcome by our own strength. If you park your car in my driveway, I can lift it up easily. I cannot do that just anywhere – because I do not carry a hydraulic floor jack everywhere I go. But at my house, using that tool, lifting a car is easy. I cannot carry my jack around with me, but the Lord goes with me. So, wherever I go, his strength is available.
We must serve by the strength he provides (1 Pet 4:11). We must not trust in our own strength (Ps 44:6). Not even Jesus claimed to work on his own (Jn 5:30). We certainly should not. It is only in the Lord that we can do all things (Phil 4:13).
“He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4, ESV).
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