Striving

Paul had the attitude that we should press after God; to run the race and to fight the good fight of faith. It sounds like we are to be striving and exerting a lot of energy to reach for and win the prize but surely it is not striving in our own human effort. It is not fighting human battles and it is not running a physical road race with strenuous self effort.  It is a fight and a race against the self that we were, compared the self we can be, by pressing in to receive grace from God. 

The more grace you can receive, the greater success as a believer you will be. Grace gets inside us and changes us from the inside. It grows in you, strengthens you and lifts you up. Grace can bring you out and get you over and that Grace came by Jesus. Moses gave the law because man can only bring law; it takes God to bring Grace.  If you look to yourself or to human help, at its best it can only be law.  You will do things because its right and we rely on our strength to overcome.  Moses went down to deliver the people and to bring them up to their inheritance in the Promised Land, but they couldn’t go in. God gave then the law, but never helped them to enter in.  They kept breaking the law and suffering judgment.

Friend our deliverer Jesus has come down from heaven to rescue us and has given us something that will enable us to go into our inheritance. It’s called grace.