Resistance is futile

Yield
2: to give or render as fitting, rightfully owed, or required 3: to give up possession of on claim or demand: as a: to give up (as one's breath) and so die b: to surrender or relinquish to the physical control of another: hand over possession of c: to surrender or submit (oneself) to another e: to relinquish one's possession of (as a position of advantage or point of superiority 2: to give up and cease resistance or contention

It has been relatively easy for me to be yielding throughout my life. Despite warnings and shelter from my mother, I yielded my body to sex. Despite my involvement with ‘Just Say No’ programs I yielded myself to drugs. Despite my faithful and caring partner, I yielded to the ‘grass is greener’ temptation and had an affair.

If we have been united with Him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, He cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over Him. The death He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life He lives, He lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6.5-11

Ok. So, after I surrendered my life to Christ, I was fixed, right? I should no longer have to worry about my temptations. Why do the old cravings come around to haunt me?

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Romans 7.14-24

Paul tells us in this scripture that we were born to sin; in Adam, but then we die and come to life in Christ. A pastor I read likens it to black slaves in the 19th century. Babies are born into slavery never knowing any difference. When they were freed, the slave owners would still try to act as if they were their owners and treat them as such. They would act as if nothing had changed, and the now freed slaves would go about business as if nothing had changed. For example, if a slave owner were to raise his hand, a slave would flinch. So, he says, we stand there with the keys in our hands while the shackles are put back on us. It is not an excuse to sin; it is a reality of the world that we currently live on. The Christian problem, that Paul is trying to flag us of, is that if we try to find the do-it-yourself book to solve this sin issue, we are sure to fail. Not ‘it’s possible to fail’, but sure to fail. This is a spiritual problem. It is only the cross of Christ that can rescue me from that sin nature, nothing else.

When I read Paul again, I could really understand what he was trying to carve into those pages. I could imagine his agony at becoming the Lord’s, and dedicating his whole life to utter devotion and service; only to find a horror living inside that won’t go away. The more I try to self-help it away, the more I try to law and reason it away, the more it grips its claws in with a firmer grasp, satisfied that it’s death-grip will last forever on this earth. I can picture Paul, thumping at his chest, tears running down his cheeks, trying to figure out a way to get it out, hating sin, loving Christ. Then I can picture Paul, looking up at an imaginary cross in his mind, seeing his beloved best friend, his Savior, and positively knowing that the only way to escape this awful sin nature, this awful slavery that we are born into is to fall back into those arms that are spread open waiting to catch us. And then Paul and I realize that the only way that the Christian comes to the end of herself and truly takes up her cross is to quit the struggling and let go.

Paul wrote this so that people like me would read it two thousand years later and be secure in the knowledge that I am not schizophrenic, but instead coming to the end of myself. He wrote this so I would not try to box myself into a set of rules that I could not stick to, and start to hate myself when I failed. He wrote this so I would not try to do the work myself.