Today’s Scripture: Matthew 26:41
“The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
William Romaine (born 1714) was one of the leaders of the eighteenth-century revival in England, along with George Whitefield and the Wesley brothers. In his classic work on faith he wrote, “no sin can be crucified either in heart or life, unless it be first pardoned in conscience, because there will be want of faith to receive the strength of Jesus, by whom alone it can be crucified. If it be not mortified in its guilt, it cannot be subdued in its power.”
What Romaine was saying is that if you do not believe you are dead to sin’s guilt, you cannot trust Christ for the strength to subdue its power in your life. So the place to begin in dealing with sin in your life is to count on the fact that you died to its guilt through your union with Christ in his death. This is an important truth you need to ponder and pray over until the Holy Spirit convinces you of it in both your head and heart.
Meanwhile, to make progress in the Christian life, we must acknowledge the continuing tension between our sinful nature and the Spirit of God within us.
Observing this “internal conflict,” George Smeaton noted, “and the strange thing is, that in this conflict the power and faculties of the Christian seem to be occupied at one time by the one, and at another time by the other. The same intellect, will, and affections come under different influences, like two conflicting armies occupying the ground, and in turn driven from the field.”
With any two opposing forces, the direction of movement often goes back and forth until one eventually prevails. This is the way it will be with us until the Holy Spirit finally prevails.
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