Fallen and Restored

     The fallen nature of people explains all human relations. Politically, people are unable to divorce ideals from selfish ambition. Despite caring about individual liberties, equality for the oppressed, ending deprivation, getting everyone opportunities and creating a better tomorrow for all, a fallen me is susceptible to letting myself down and being used by Satan. I let myself down by giving in to short term gain for the sake of approval or some personal satisfaction. I am used by Satan every time I feel that someone else is being preferred to me, or is rising up on the back of my hard work. Fear of people’s disapproval makes me lose my nerve. The ambition of office makes me compromise my aims. 

    In marriages and civil partnerships, falling in love and vowing lifelong faithfulness is followed, in real life, by feelings of being misunderstood and disrespected. Quite apart from extremes of adultery or violence or abandonment, there is the daily dissatisfaction of longings not fulfilled by his insensitivity, her disrespect, mutual lack of acceptance, and prior lives with no preparation of godliness to enable joyful service and speech that is accepting but still honest: no one knows how to do that, and indeed, by itself it wouldn’t be enough, because only when individual hearts are fully satisfied by God can they truly be there for one another. 

    It isn’t difficult to see how fallen nature disrupts and hurts us in the workplace, the playing field, casual and deeper friendships and other relationships. 

    God saves us and gives us his grace when we turn to Jesus in repentance and faith, but our journey from baptism onwards is one of fighting the good fight between the old and new selves, the Spirit and the flesh. Our role in this is to “seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness.” We must invest time in our relationship with God in order for it to be as strong as is needed to “grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ,” and we must “set our hearts on things above,” serving the Lord thankfully in good works, which were prepared in advance for us to do. These works will be found in our everyday lives: at work, at home, and at church. In word and in deed, short time or long, we find ourselves involved in the kingdom’s work of “making disciples of all nations.” As we “make the most of the time,” God transforms us from one degree of glory to the next, and together with God, we reap a harvest of righteousness in our own changed characters and in the souls of other people who turn to Jesus and live. 

    Apart from actively engaging with the Spirit of God, no lasting contentment of heart or change of character is possible. Our own strength and wisdom can chisel and constrain to some extent, but cannot soften and fill and reveal knowledge to us as God can. As we learn to yield to the Spirit of God in us, our Spirit-controlled characters will become ready to bring God’s righteousness to our company’s accounts department, and God’s peace to our interactions with our colleagues, and God’s wisdom to our problem solving meetings.