Father, we have a firm identity in you. We are your children, brothers and sisters of Christ, citizens in your Kingdom. We are holy and blameless in your sight. Yet not us, but through Christ in us. These things are only true because it is no longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.
But our old selves are not entirely gone. We still feel our members waging war inside us. The flesh still hinders. Sin still entangles. Still we do not do what we want, but we instead do the very things we hate. Wretched men that we are! Who will deliver us from these bodies of death? Who will help us crush the head of the serpent? With what shall we extinguish all of Apollyon’s flaming darts?
Thanks be to God, who delivers us through Jesus Christ our Lord! Thanks be to God, who clothes us in his righteousness and his armor, so that we might stand against the schemes of the serpent in the evil day. Thanks be to the God of peace, who will soon crush Satan under our feet.
You began this work in us, Lord. But it is far from complete. Every day we believe the lies of the enemy. We are not who you made us. We do not yet walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called. You call us to be your sons and daughters, but we stubbornly rebel against the one who would adopt us.
We are torn apart by this “already, but not yet” nature of our salvation. We were called before the foundation of the earth, and we were justified by your work on the Cross, but our sanctification is a long and weary journey. Our position is sure, but our progress is slow. But we know that you who began a good work in us will carry it to completion. Do not tarry! Make us who we are!
“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever” (Jude 24-25).
Amen.