Why Christianity Can Be So Disenchanting

Romans 7: 21 - 24

"So I find this law at work: Although 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 me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!"
You might be interested to know that the above quote is written by Paul about himself. Yes, that would be St. Paul. The greatest champion of the early Christian church. Author of half the New Testament of the Bible.

I was listening to my favorite Christian radio station yesterday and starting thinking about the lyrics of many of the songs. My mind also wandered to many sermons I've listened to. Well, the majority of songs and sermons actually. There's something very important missing from them. Something critical to the new believer and the would-be believer. Christianity doesn't make you perfect and it doesn't take away your desire to sin.
We hear all of these things about how we should live and think, how good God is, and about the amazing things He has done. It just doesn't seem to happen for us. That must mean we either aren't really a Christian, or maybe our sin is too great to overcome, right? Wrong, but it's very easy for me to see why it comes across that way. When people talk and sing, they pick topics that sound really good, but they leave out what Paul is discussing here.

In the above verse, Paul has just finished telling us that he does the things he hates rather than the good things his mind desires to do. This is the post-conversion Paul by the way. He's telling us that being Christian doesn't make you perfect or life easy. It makes life harder. You now have the Spirit in a constant battle against the sin you were born with. It's a fight that lasts your entire lifetime. It's only over at death.

Let me share this with you: as a Christian, you will still sin. You will lose battles. You will make a choice that is clearly the wrong one and feel guilty about it afterward. You will win over your favorite sin one day and lose the next. Christianity simply offers that when you mess up, Christ covers it. It also offers that the Spirit living in you will do battle against your sinful nature.

There will be improvement. You will feel moments that match what the songs and sermons say. They'll slowly grow more frequent and longer in duration. But you won't escape every form of sin. Every obstacle you overcome presents a new one. The Christian life isn't easy, my friends. Anyone who preaches health and wealth while ignoring the reality is a liar. No one should be telling you that it's easy, only that the it's worth it.