D. L. Moody once said…
“When I was converted, I made this mistake: I thought the battle was already mine, the victory already won, the crown already in my grasp. I thought the old things had passed away, that all things had become new, and that my old corrupt nature, the old life, was gone. But I found out, after serving Christ for a few months, that conversion was only like enlisting in the army–that there was a battle on hand.”
In Our Daily Bread we read about how we can’t but He can – A young boy was at the barbershop for a haircut. The room was filled with cigar smoke. The lad pinched his nose and exclaimed, “Who’s been smoking in here!”
The barber sheepishly confessed, “I have.”
The boy responded, “Don’t you know it’s not good for you?”
“I know,” the barber replied. “I’ve tried to quit a thousand times but I just can’t.”
The boy commented, “I understand. I’ve tried to stop sucking my thumb, but I can’t quit either!”
Those two remind me of the way believers sometimes feel about their struggle with sins of the flesh. Paul summed it up well by crying out,
“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24).
His spiritual battle might have left him in despair if he had not found the solution. Following his agonizing question, he declared with triumph,
“I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Ro 7:25)
Are you struggling to break some stubborn habit? Like Paul, you can be an overcomer. If you know the Lord Jesus as your Savior, victory is possible through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Confidently affirm with Paul,
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Php 4:13)