More broken than we care to admit

"You must ask for God's help. ... After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again".   C S Lewis.

It always interests me to see what verses about ourselves we chose to omit from our own "versions" of the scriptures.

There's these, for example:
"I am of the flesh, enslaved by sin. I do what is evil because sin dwells within me (nothing good dwells in my flesh). I have a desire to do good, but I do not do this, but I do evil instead. I find that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand (for) I see in my members a power waging war against what is good and making me captive to sin that resides in me, so in my mind I know and desire to serve what is good, but in my flesh I serve the law of sin... Wretched man that I am!". Paul (Romans 7).

It's pretty clear what Paul is stating here - sin works in us, so that we sin. This is why we believe that union with Christ makes us simultaneously justified yet still sinful - we know there will be times of failure, but we know that grace has already dealt with these in the righteous life and death of Christ, hence -
"If we say we have no sin,  we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (1 John 1:8-10).

So, why do Christians teach things like this (which came up on a facebook link this week):
"It's a spiritual impossibility to love God but have difficulty obeying Him in certain areas".

The piece referred to is clearly speaking about you and I loving God in a way that is total. It reminded me of a conversation between John and Charles Wesley. John was well known for teaching that christians should be perfect in their conduct so they could express Gods holiness to the world. One day, Charles came to him in exasperation and said "John, I just cannot do it - I cannot keep all these rules and requirements to be holy". John is said to have replied that that was fine "Just love God instead".

Duty. Requirements. Obligations. Law.
It leaves us in the spin Paul found himself in when writing Romans 7, because honesty tells us that in ourselves, we're on a road to no where.
It leaves us, like David, at a time of obligation (2 Samuel 11:1), lounging and longing for something to allow the person to run free - often with dire consequences.

We find it hard to get close to that manner of honesty because it requires us to look deeper than our more immediate transgressions to the fact that there is part of us that not only desires gratification of our natural appetites  (bent and twisted though they are by sin), but our core needs for meaning and purpose, so easily beset by pride and idolatry. It reminds us (as a new piece on Mockingbird put it this week) that "behind (inside) every faithful believer is an equally faithful atheist, seeking to tell us that it is all nonsense".

Christianity has to do its exposition of this well, because when we seek to, in some fashion, introduce a program which says you can be achieving what is expected of you (in respect to all the requirements of inward holiness and external righteous behaviour), we are getting terribly close to peddling a 'Dr good' snake oil remedy that was too well known in the first century of the faith (see Galatians 1:6-9).

In me, that is in my natural self, noted Paul, there does not dwell anything good, so if you, in effect, train what is evil to act and pretend to be good, that's not holiness - it's diabolical.

So, let's put ourselves where scripture does, and seek to lay out our theology from there, like this:
"Original sin... is the fault and corruption of the nature of every man, (hence we) are very far removed from original righteousness and are of our own nature inclined to evil, so our flesh craves continually in opposition to what is good... and this infection of nature remains in those born anew and is not subject to God's requirements, hence the Apostle (Paul) declares that such propensities to desire what is evil - to sin - are evident amongst those who believe and are baptized, but are not condemned (because of Christ)" (39 articles - 1561).

The only means provided by God that cleanses us from sin and unrighteousness is the blood of Jesus Christ ( 1 John 1:7) - our entire fellowship together is because of that reality. It underpins the fact that we are sinners saved entirely by grace (Romans 3:21-26, 4:5). If we open the door, even an inch, that conveys that something instead of or, more likely, as well as that unmerited love is required, we have omitted from and added to the word of life, and we are back to the bondage of our own worth and merits, seeking to purchase good standing with God by our own standards.

"When grace is known", notes Paul Zahl, "not confounded in any degree by law, it paints a masterpiece: a person  unconditionally affirmed who instantaneously becomes the expresser of love and joy and peace and creativity" (Grace in theology). When grace is subverted by law, we instead create a Dorian Grey - a man who may dress in charm and endearment, but whose vice is slowly murdering him, without remedy.

We cannot, we must not, ascribe to a theology that leaves us with the latter and not the former, for that would leave us with a company who do not love God, but hate Him.

Christianity reflects the light, but the light is from one far more lovely than ourselves. He alone will make all things new.