No amount of guilt or shame can do what grace is able to do. You will never understand your struggle with that unless you grasp that, At the very root of it is a heart problem. It’s not a problem of bad behavior, although it seems to always go there. It’s not even a temptation problem, although it causes us to give in to temptations draw. It’s not a location or a situation although it expresses itself there.
It’s the sin of the heart that’s at the root of it all. If we look at the Bible it uses many terms for the inner, spiritual, desiring, motivational you, but all these terms are gathered together and summarized by one big collective term… heart. It’s one of the most often used terms in the Bible. We cannot begin to understand the transforming message of the Bible, unless you understand this term.
There’s something that I learned being a believer through the years. The heart is at the core of our personhood. It’s the seat of our thoughts, emotions, desires, and motivations. It is the worship center of yourself.
The heart is reason we do the things we do and say the things we do.we literally live out of our hearts. Sin lives in our hearts, and because it does, it corrupts our thoughts, desires, choices, and motivations. Our flesh (sin) always looks to be satisfied. God created us to do His will, but our flesh makes us lovers of self. We were made to worship God (not ourselves). We were designed to live for God’s glory (and when we do, He will bless us). And unless these things change in our hearts, or behavior won’t change at all, or if it does change, it won’t for very long.
No amount of commitment to self-reformation will change our heart. No amount of work we do will alter bad habits will change our heart. No amount of running from certain situations, locations, and relationships have the power to change your heart. We cannot run from our flesh (sin) because we can’t run from ourselves. The most outrageous acts of repentance in the world are powerless to do what needs to be done – radically change our heart.
So you and I are left with one final option. It is the only choice that makes any sense; everything else is insanity. And we need to do this again and again until we don’t need it anymore.
We need to run to the grace of Jesus. Run for forgiveness. Run for power. Run for transformation. Run for deliverance. Run, Run, Run. Don’t ever stop running to grace until Jesus has taken you home to a place where you don’t need to run anymore.
Life is impossible. We cannot do anything without the grace of Jesus. He died for us. For us to have grace.
From Pity to Praise 