Through Good

For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. Romans 7: 11

We have spoken of this truth in passing, but we need to spend a bit more time specifically on this. Don’t you agree?

Here is the last part of the text

And through the commandment put me to death.

Sin put me to death through the commandment. Listening to it, I felt that was truly bad. However, when it was put to me this way, I crumbled. This is what I was told. “Evil, through what was given by God, to bring me life, put me to death.” I really was lost here and only the Spirit Himself could quicken me and hold me fixed to Him. I saw sin, as taking hold of God’s good to me, as I too took hold of God’s good. In other words, God’s good was held by me and the devil. Here is an example, a current, everyday example.

God has given us His infallible Word, His Word that is without error or fault. We take hold of it as of our Lord’s, but the deceiver also takes hold of it and because he is more astute and shrewder than we are, or can ever be, in our own strength, he took this life-giving good and used it to put me to death. Understand the cleverness of the deceiver. No wonder Jesus says to us, Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Matthew 10: 16b KJV. What we are made fully aware of is that the deceiver is not being our death, our separation from God or our disobedience to God.

Note clearly these most eye-opening truths.

The devil does not take the commandment of God and turn it into folly. We do it ourselves.
The devil does not tell us that the Word of God is rubbish and nonsense, that which is not good for us in our struggles. No! He holds up the Word of God high, but lets us know that it’s okay to worry, be anxious, become all depressed and discouraged, because we are only human and Jesus will understand, because He was human too. We are the ones who keep worrying, not the devil.
The devil does not make us bear ugly, ungodly fruit. We do so, because we remove ourselves from Jesus, the True Vine, and rush to attach ourselves to the way of worry, self-pity, anxiousness and more.
The devil does not make me sin, for Jesus has long ago taken that power from his hands. What he does, is tempt me and push me to do what is wrong. When I give up and give in, for whatever reason or reasons, he rejoices, because he has caught one more in his trap of deceit.