I was having a study in
course of the week when a word jumped at me about the life of David in
comparison to our walk with God in the new covenant. I saw from this word that you
can live perfectly as Jesus wants you to, both at heart and in your act.
There has been too many
narrative of how God uses men who are full of mess, even mightily. The story of
David is always at the centre of not being perfect and still being valuable for
God. There is absolutely no doubt that God can be interested in a vessel,
whether the vessel is messed or not. The only problem here is remaining in this
state of constant mess having known God, and, using such a narrative to
vindicate what you do; that is blatantly living in error.
Let me describe such
scenario using anger as a case study: A man who is already in the faith keeps
on engaging in a particular mess that it has become so obvious to every onlooker.
This man is a victim of anger and each time he is infuriated, he becomes so
violent that he uses vulgar words which does not represent the person of
Christ. Now, such a man is talked to by some concerned brethren. He then feels
in his heart that God uses a man despite his mess, after all David even
committed murder and was called a man after God’s own heart. Then the popular “unsaved”
cliché comes in: “no one is perfect”.
The beauty of our faith
in Christ is that it takes care of all. David was truly a faithful man to the
course of the Lord: He fought many battles, became a king with so much demonstrations
for God. However, in all of these, what he had was just a portion of God’s
spirit upon, not indwelling as we enjoy today in the new covenant. He reigned
in a time that men didn’t have to do evil before they were called sinners.
Being a sinner wasn’t about committing sin, by the virtue of what the first
Adam did, all men were in a mess. The nature of Adam reigned.
Now, with the coming of
Christ, there was a shift in the system. Man now has the power over the old nature.
It is no longer an obligation for man to obey the evil he has in his heart as
Jesus made the Holy Spirit available to those who believe in Him to now put to
flight the deeds of the old man. What this means is that you now have a choice
to how you act. So, it is no longer a faith without a commensurate act. You are
no longer under the covenant David lived in that made it a non-issue for him to
keep misbehaving and God was looking at his heart.
“But
you are not like that. You are controlled by your new nature if you have the
Spirit if God living in you. (And remember that if anyone doesn’t have the
Spirit of Christ living in him he is not a Christian at all.)…
So,
dear brothers, you have no obligations whatever to your old sinful nature to do
what it begs you to do” (Rom8:9/12)
There is something God
already fixed in those who shall be heirs of salvation through Jesus that was
absent in the life of David- His Spirit. So, using David as your benchmark of
daily living is gross misrepresentation of identity and an aberration to the
finished works of Christ.
It is true that David
was a man after God’s own heart and his acts were not perfect, however, there
is a shift now. Our hearts and our acts can now be in tandem as a result of
what Christ has done and is doing in the life of a believer. You need to renew
your mind to that state of knowing your daily life is to be lived as the person
of Christ would live. You don’t have to attain the height in a day but giving
excuses to why you should remain in the mess only limits how far God can go
with you. Truly, God uses men who has mess, but, they are not to remain in the
mess. God can use you despite your mess, but, if you remain in it, you have
limited the extent of your influence in Him.
If your faith only
remains a “heart” thing and cannot be connected to your “acts”, there is a
problem with the faith you profess. This could be acceptable before the
experience of the salvation man enjoys through Christ. Now, “It is He who has
the power in you both to will and to do”.
I want you to sit down
and begin to ask yourself if your deeds and the faith you profess complement
each other. And if there are areas to work on, kindly take note and prayerfully
work on them (I am doing that too). God doesn’t want you to remain in a mess
and claim His grace covers it all. You can be perfect both at heart and in act.
He is willing to help if only you don’t join those who say “it is my heart that
matters”. Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.
What can people say
about you?
“What
good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no
deeds? Can such faith save them?” James 2:14
Be Innovated
Olufemi Ibitoye
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