hello all. anyone ever get so tired of the struggle to do what God says to do?? i am. i have tried and tried the last couple of years, but im not getting anywhere. i wont ever turn away from God, but i am trying to come to terms with what seems to be a fact, that im going to hell. im trying to shift the focus of hell, from eternal torment, to i deserve it. and that me going there is justice and that every part of creation will praise God for me being sent there. sounds odd, but a duck has to quack and swim. and i have to repeatedly, willfully sin. daily.
i do envy people who found salvation to be easy. i wish everyone could.
You know, God never says in His word that we are supposed to make ourselves holy. We are to be holy, yes, as He is holy, but the how of such a life is
God's responsibility, His work, not yours. He tells us again and again in His word that
He changes us.
John 15:4-5
4 "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.
5 "I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
Philippians 1:6
6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Romans 8:13
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
2 Corinthians 3:18
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.
Jude 1:24-25
24 Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,
25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
As you're discovering, we don't have it in us to be the people God wants us to be. We're weak, sin-cursed, selfish; we don't want what God wants, we want what
we want. And so, when we set out to try to be the person only God can make us to be, failure is the inevitable result. Like begets like: a dog begets a dog, a cat begets a cat, a horse begets a horse, and you can only beget more of you. The only one who can "beget" godliness in us is God.
Strangely, many Christians don't actually believe this. Instead, knowing the commands of God and the sort of life He wants His children to live, they set out to fashion such a life
in their own power for God. Only when the strain of doing so becomes too much do they finally turn to God for help. It sometimes takes many years of this cycle of self-effort and failure before the Christian person is finally convinced of their utter inability to live God's way consistently and joyfully. But when they arrive at this moment, it is then that they see that God never asked them to do for Him what He always intended He should do for them. They'd got the whole thing backward and frustration and failure was the result.
Why doesn't the Spirit work more transformatively in the children of God? Why doesn't he, when he takes up residence within a believer, immediately change them such that they are able to live God's way well, with power and consistency? Well, because His control of the believer and the transformation he works in a believer as a result of this control happens only in response to the believer constantly
choosing God's will and way over their own. The Holy Spirit will control us and change us but not under a circumstance where he has made us essentially a robot or puppet. No, we must throughout every day be yielding, surrendering, submitting ourselves to the Holy Spirit (
Romans 6:13-22; Romans 8:14; Romans 12:1; James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:6; Micah 6:8), to his will and way, and in this place of humble submission to him, he moves to change us.
Under no other condition will the Spirit work to change us and make us more like Christ. If we are set upon trying to make the Christian life happen for God, if we think it is
our power that changes us,
our commitment, and determination, and ability to sacrifice for God by which we come to be "vessels fit for the Master's use", we have placed ourselves in the transformation process where God should stand. And the result is always ultimately failure.
When we submit to God, does He promise to instantaneously alter us to be like Christ? When we yield ourselves will we be immediately, and profoundly, and forever changed? No. In the midst of our constant yielding to God, to the Holy Spirit, transformation occurs progressively, subtly and naturally, like a branch growing out from the trunk of a tree.
You could watch a young sapling for hours on end, even for days, and never notice at any particular moment the growth that is nonetheless occurring in it. But if you went away for six months and returned, the growth of the sapling would be very evident. So, too, for the surrendered Christian being changed by God. Instead of the torturous straining that most Christians endure when they are trying to do God's "job" for Him, the change He works in us by His awesome power is so natural and profound we often only realize it has happened looking back over weeks and months. When God changes us, He alters our desires. We stop wanting what we want and what the world urges us to want and we find ourselves naturally, happily even, desiring God's way more and more and acting in accord with this desire, forsaking selfish and sin and living a holy, Christ-centered life.
It is so reflexive, though, for us to submit to God and then to set about stuffing down what we want, and sacrificing for God, and exerting ourselves in righteous living. All God asks of us, though, is to
receive,
remain in and
reflect His work in us. And when we do, we encounter incredible but natural change, joy rather than onerous, tearing sacrifice, peace and rest instead of frustration and failure.
Galatians 3:3
3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
1 Corinthians 1:29-31
29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.
30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 
Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
We are one big family in Christ. When one hurts we all hurt.
