The Greatest Gift of All
I love to garden and I find that the Lord often ministers to my heart when I'm working out in my yard. Just recently as I was working on clearing out some weeds in my blueberry patch, a particular weed reminded me of the impossibility of overcoming sin apart from Christ and caused me to reflect on and rejoice in the wonderful news of the gospel.
This particular noxious weed that has found its way into my blueberry patch, you may be familiar with—the dreaded bindweed. This weed is a vining plant that grows along the ground, and will quickly smother anything in its path, wrapping its delicate tendrils around everything it touches. It has a robust root system that spreads out underground like a complex vascular system, going as deep as 9 feet underground. As you pull this weed, you have to dig down under the soil carefully and try to dig out as much of the root as possible, because any piece of root left in the ground could potentially sprout a whole new plant. Needless to say, it’s a real pain, and nearly impossible to eradicate. I was feeling quite discouraged and frustrated after spending two afternoons working on digging out about a 5×5 patch of this opportunistic weed, knowing I couldn’t get every piece of root no matter how hard I tried. It was incredibly tedious, my back was sore, and this was only one area of many that this weed has been making itself at home! I know it will be my nemesis for years to come.
That's when I began to think about how bindweed is a perfect picture of sin. Ever since sin entered the heart of man, its roots went deep, so deep that we cannot eradicate it on our own. Oh, we can try! We can work at it really hard, disciplining ourselves daily, striving and straining, but despite our strongest efforts, we (in our own strength) will not be able to get every root of sin out of the soil of our hearts.
We may be very good about staying on top of the sin that people can see, but what about that sin tucked away in the heart and mind? If you are not dealing with the root of sin, then you'll never be truly free from sin, because the roots are all still there, deep in the soil of your heart. Given the right conditions sin will sprout up once again. It becomes exhausting trying to keep on top of it, so many just surrender to sin because it's easier than trying to resist and fight against it. We truly need a miracle because nothing man has tried has worked; no amount of religion, penance, or good deeds will cleanse us from all sin. It's a losing battle in our own strength. We need a miracle, and Jesus is that miracle!
The only way to fully eradicate bindweed would be to dig out all the old soil, and bring in new weed-free soil. In the same way, the only way to be truly free from sin is to be given a new heart. We must surrender our heart to Christ, laying down our old life in exchange for the new life Jesus offers. We need to identify ourselves with His death, as if we physically died on the cross with Him, becoming dead to sin (a dead body cannot sin) and we, in exchange, are raised up to eternal life with Him:
"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom. 6:6-11).
When we do this, Jesus exchanges our heart of stone (hard, dead soil, infested with the weeds of sin) for a heart of flesh (new, soft, rich, weed-free soil). We need a heart transplant! Ezekiel prophesied of this day:
"A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them" (Ez. 36:26-27).
In Romans 5:3, it says that Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to Him for righteousness. Today we have something even better when we believe that "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His name" (Jn. 30:21), and that "He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). The miracle of the gospel is that it is not just accounted to us for righteousness, but we are made righteous in Jesus when we believe it to be true. We have been made clean, righteous, and acceptable in God's sight.
Of course while we still live in this body of flesh, we will continue to contend with our flesh. Paul describes the struggle in Romans chapter 7: "I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:21-24). But then he goes on to say, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord...There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 7:25, 8:1). Hallelujah!
The only way to be truly free is to surrender; you must stop striving in your own strength and start abiding in what Jesus has already done for you. It is not your righteousness, it is His. If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are free from sin in that it no longer has dominion over you. "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (Jn. 8:36).
When we are tempted to sin, we can take those thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:4-5), and choose to obey the law of the Spirit, instead of the law of the flesh. When we fail to obey the Spirit, we are still under grace, and Jesus is ready and willing to forgive. We simply need to humble ourselves, repent/renounce our sin, and instantly we are forgiven. He immediately destroys that weed of sin (root and all) once again, so that we may bear good fruit in the soil of our hearts and lives, unhindered by choking and depleting weeds of sin. His mercies are new every morning and every moment of the day!
Just before Jesus died, He proclaimed, "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30). Psalm 103:12 says: "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.” This is one thing in life that we can truly say with Jesus: "It is finished!" We are secure in Christ, no longer under condemnation, but under grace. We have been reconciled to God! We can say with Paul that we have been crucified with Christ so it is "no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). Hallelujah! The battle over sin has already been won! We are new creatures in Christ. For this we can truly be thankful and rejoice every day.
As you reflect on the wonderful news of the gospel this Thanksgiving, may your heart well up with joy at the freedom in which you stand, may you be filled with His perfect peace as you rest in Christ's finished work, and may you be empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk in obedience to the Lord daily. ”Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16).
