Missionary Renegade: The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 28 June 2016

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 28 June 2016 - "We struggle with sin"

The Daily Guide. grow. pray. study. The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, United States for Tuesday, 28 June 2016 - "We struggle with sin"

Daily Scripture: Romans 7:21 So I find it to be the rule, a kind of perverse “torah,” that although I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me! 22 For in my inner self I completely agree with God’s Torah; 23 but in my various parts, I see a different “torah,” one that battles with the Torah in my mind and makes me a prisoner of sin’s “torah,” which is operating in my various parts. 24 What a miserable creature I am! Who will rescue me from this body bound for death? 25 Thanks be to God [, he will]! — through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord!

To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God’s Torah; but with my old nature, I am a slave of sin’s “Torah.”

Reflection Questions:
“A dog can’t think that much about what he’s doing, he just does what feels right.”[Barbara Kingsolver (Author)]
We love them, we play with them, we train them. But even most “good dogs” once in a while remind us that they are still a dog. Sometimes they like to roll in smelly stuff, or perhaps tear up a favorite toy of theirs or a shoe, glove or couch pillow we value. The apostle Paul wrote honestly about moments when he realized that his actions didn’t match the ideals he truly held to. Like our dogs, we sometimes fall short in our struggle to live the way we want to live.

In The Message, Eugene Peterson paraphrased verses 22-23 this way: “I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.” Can you recall times (though you might prefer to forget them) when those words described your experience? In what ways do times like that make God’s ever-present grace particularly important to you?
Research shows that even when we think we’re being strictly logical (e.g. buying a car), we often act on inner factors we don’t recognize consciously. That doesn’t relieve us of responsibility for our choices, but it helps to explain Paul’s cry—“I’m a miserable human being.” When has the realization that you’ve fallen short of God’s (and your) ideal made you feel miserable? At those times, don’t forget what followed in Paul: “Thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Today’s Prayer:
Lord, I often wish you would just “flip a switch” and wipe out all the inner flaws I struggle with. Give me persistence to walk with you each day, growing the kind of character no flip of a switch could give me. Amen.
-------Insights from Randy Greene

Randy Greene serves in the Communications ministry as the Digital Media Specialist. He helps develop and maintain the church’s family of websites.
Today’s reading is a tough one for me. I have this tendency to be hyper-rational, so when I think about a disconnect between what I want to do versus what I actually do, my immediate instinct is to tell myself “Suck it up, Randy! Mind over matter! If your flesh doesn’t want to cooperate, just force it into submission!”
That’s an easy thing for me to tell myself when I’m considering sin as this vague, abstract idea, but when I start plugging in the individual sins that I struggle with, I am struck with the reality of what Paul is saying.
“I know I should respond with grace when someone yells at me,” Paul says, “but when I’m caught in the moment, I respond in defensiveness and anger anyways.”
“I know that I should be engaged in intentional community with my neighbors,” he confesses, “but when I get home from work, I’m so tired… and the weekends are the one time I get to relax… and I’m not much of an extrovert anyways, so I’ll just wait for my neighbors to come to me.”
As I think about the list of sins that plague me, I begin to despair – just as Paul did. In verse 24 of our passage, he says, “I’m a miserable human being. Who will deliver me from this dead corpse?” (this one’s a real quote, not me putting words in Paul’s mouth). But that’s when I remember, just as Paul did, that the grace of God covers me. No matter how often I fail or how far I fall, the steadfast love of God draws me close. God loves me, wraps me in his arms and calls me his beloved child – even in the midst of my flaws.