Paul's Conundrum

 

Thursday, June 30, 2022

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  I love God’s law with all my heart.  But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.  This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  So you see how it is:  In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.  Romans 7:21-25

One of the dictionary definitions for the word conundrum is a riddle, or a question asked for amusement, typically one with a pun in its answer.  A second definition is:  a confusing and difficult problem or question.  Paul’s conundrum has none of the first definition; there’s little humor in struggling with sin, doing the one thing you hate most, and not doing what you really want to do, because it is the nature of darkness drawing you to it, with all the power of Hell behind it.  Paul’s conundrum is the second type, a confusing and difficult problem, and the question behind it…why can’t I do better than this?  In short, it’s a living Hell.

Paul’s conundrum is ours.  Somewhere between the cradle and adulthood, most everyone with a reasonable grip on reality begins to understand this most awkward of life’s realities:  you know you were created for better than what you do…and you also know you can’t help yourself.  It’s like that with the chocolate-covered Payday bar that has been sitting on my desk since my birthday three days ago, that I do not want to eat, yet I want to eat it more than take my next breath. 

If I had any sense (about my weight and health) I might be able to take one bite and put the balance in the fridge for next week’s bite.  It would last a month or six weeks, and I’d need that long to burn off the extra sugar thinking about doing some exercise…which is another thing tied to Paul’s conundrum.  (But I digress)

Paul’s condition (that which led him to label himself the worst of all sinners[1]) is, an unanswerable riddle, a plague in the life of everyone in Adam’s lineage.  Paul agonized over his desire to do good, and the eventual result of messing up…again, and again!  And, if you can say with a straight face that you’ve never encountered that in your personal experience, you haven’t lived long enough, sinned big enough, or honestly come face to face with reality of the human condition.  Hang around a little longer, think a little deeper, and keep your eyes open.  You will see the DNA of your personal goodness come untangled at some point.

The good news of Paul’s (and our) condition is, when you ask the same question, Who will deliver me from this hell…there is, and always has been (in the heart and lovingkindness of God’s plan) an answer for any who are willing to bend a knee.  The answer is Jesus Christ; he will BE the power that overcomes sin for you, because He knows you cannot do it by yourself.

For You Today

If you haven’t bumped into this question/conundrum, you either haven’t been honest, or you’ve not been listening.  It’s there, and it is related to whatever troubling behavior, and nagging guilt exists in the back of your mind.  And God has provided the only remedy for what ails you:

But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.               1 John 1:9

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

For other posts on this topic:  Impossible and Free Will

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  1 Timothy 1:15

God, Who is Fair and Just

Friday, March 6, 2020

People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood.  This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when he held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for he was looking ahead and including them in what he would do in this present time.  God did this to demonstrate his righteousness, for he himself is fair and just, and he makes sinners right in his sight when they believe in Jesus.                         Romans 3:22-26

In something of an attempt to present a different kind of sermon I once asked a church member to present a paper she’d written which holds the opposite view that Paul expresses in his letter to the Romans, namely that God is unfair and a liar.  The sermon’s main intent was to teach people who were going through very difficult times, and were experiencing a shaking of their faith, how to begin to trust God again.  Two things about this paper, it was my bride, Elizabeth, who wrote the paper in 1988, and it was a college assignment, not a reflection of her relationship with God.  It was simply entitled An Unfair and Lying God.

The paper was a really good argument for the unbelief you see today in people who are whistling in the dark, trying to get past the possibility that there really is a God and they might be in trouble.  The sermon became one of my all-time favorites, because during that Sunday morning worship I saw lights come on in the faces of people I knew and loved.  The place was alive with recognition of that awe of God’s holiness and righteousness; He is a just and fair God!

The Apostle Paul did not think that at one point in his life when he was still going by the name Saul.  In fact, to think God could forgive people that were departing from his orthodox Judaism to worship a sinner who’d been put on a cross, well that was just too much!  So, Paul went on a rampage, dragging those sinful believers in Jesus into the courts for judgment and death.  And then, at the height of that rampage, Paul met Jesus on the Road to Damascus, and everything changed; Saul had a heart change, because the light stopped him dead in his tracks.  He had an eternity change, because the Christ of that light forgave Saul, who would later call himself the chief of all sinners:

This is a trustworthy saying, and everyone should accept it: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”—and I am the worst of them all.  1 Timothy 1:15

And Saul had a name change; God changed his name and destination to Paul, Apostles to the Gentiles, church planter, writer of a third of the New Testament, and martyr for the very Kingdom of God he’d once persecuted.

For You Today

There’s nothing truthful or fair in the heavenlies about the way sin treats you.  But God, in His infinite goodness and grace always tells the truth and is ever exceedingly fair and just!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO 

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For more posts on Romans 3 and the whole idea of the fairness of God’s judgment and grace see these older posts The Face of Rebellion and A Light Shines in My Heart