Could part of the disconnect be that we are still looking for evidence in our own works which can somehow stand the scrutiny of God’s holy law apart from the free grace of justification in Christ? – for he who has died is justified from sin (Rom 6:7)! So, are we looking for love in all the wrong places?

“Even though our outward man is wasting away, the inner man is being renewed day by day”

Do we get better as Christians? Well, yes and no. Scripture does speak of being transformed by the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:2) and of the inner man being renewed day by day. By grace Christians are more and more sanctified in Christ, and through the Holy Spirit set apart unto godly living in thought, word, and deed.  Yet all too often we seem less than victorious in that sanctification. Real sin still remains in every part of of our being so that as the apostle Paul writes, For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. A warfare in which it often doesn’t seem to ourselves that we are getting all that much better inasmuch as we are eye-witnesses against ourselves. We see our very real role in our very real failings.

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