August 3, 2019 -- Romans 7:14-15 -- What are you moving towards?
/14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.
Romans 7:14-15 English Standard Version
What is it you want? Seems like a straightforward question, doesn’t it? Many of us can name the things we want. Many of us have financial goals and goals for our work, goals for our hobbies and so on. Perhaps you have experienced this strange anomaly: you know what you want but you are doing things which are contrary to your stated goals.
James K .A. Smith notes that what we say we want is often at odds with what our core desires are. However, we are always moving towards our goals. Smith writes:
To be human is to be on the move, pursuing something, after something.
We are like existential sharks: have to to move to live. We are not just static
containers for ideas; we are dynamic creatures directed to some end. In
philosophy we have a shorthand term for this: something that is oriented
toward an end or telos (a “goal”) is described as “teleological.”
James K.A. Smith You Are What You Love page 8
Paul is expressing this sense of knowing intellectually what he wants, having had his heart and mind captured by Christ, Jesus is his goal and his heart’s desire. And yet he acknowledges his flesh is pulling on him, his old, sinful goals, are at war within him. For the apostle Paul the resolution is found in Jesus Christ alone. All his soul’s deepest longings are met in knowing Jesus. By putting the Word of God into the depths of His heart—bringing it to the core of who he is—He is moving towards Jesus the Hope and Joy of his soul.
We are intellectual and we are heart-driven. We are driven by the longings of our heart; it is those longings that need to be examined. If we have a goal and we find we are constantly veering away from that goal, we need to do a heart check, asking: what it is I really want? What it is I am really worshiping at this time? The good things I want to do I am not doing—why not? The answer is clear—we are off course because we haven’t placed Jesus as the highest good and the greatest desire of our hearts. Whatever is on the throne of our hearts, that is what we’ll move towards. If we do not examine our lives, we may well find we are rushing headlong to ruin.
Tomorrow is Sunday. Get a heart-check and plan on getting spiritually fit.
Jesus, I confess—in agreement with Your Word—it is possible to look so good on the outside, and yet, inside be sin-filled, with maggoty, rotting, crawling evil. By Your Word and by Your Spirit help us to perform a heart examination, so that like Paul in Romans we will make an honest assessment of our goals and of where we are actually heading. By Your Word and by Your Spirit correct our course. Thank You for Sundays, for days of worship and family in the faith who encourage us in all that is excellent and good and holy and true. Amen.
