"I do what I do not want to do"

I struggle daily between the desire to be what God has made me to be and the self that my flesh longs to be. Once you have a glimpse of God and his Holiness there is an awareness of the imperfectness of our fleshly state. I can relate to Paul who wrote, "I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do." Romans 7:15

It is frustrating being in this imperfect state where on a daily basis I hurt the heart of God. It has often been depressing when I let the guilt overtake me. Isn't that where the enemy of my soul wants me? Depressed? Unable to move out of the desire to sulk and look within myself and my failings, crippled, useless out of my own doing? The grace of God was not meant to cripple me but set me free.

The problem is that I am not looking upon myself as my Heavenly Father does. I am looking at the filth, the sin that pollutes me on a daily basis. I am seeing myself before Christ. When He looks upon me he sees His child whom He loves and has washed and has made white as snow.

My application for today is to attempt to see myself as the Father does, to not give myself over to slavery again but to live in the freedom that he has so graciously given me.

While today I stand unfinished and imperfect apart from Christ, I stand complete and flawless in Him. It was through the blood of Christ that I was bought, redeemed and cleansed, " I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Galatians 2:20

"And because you are sons, God has sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, Abba Father! Therefore, you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Galatians 4:6-7