Wielding the Sword

The other day, someone spoke up on retreat about something she learned from Romans 8, and it reminded me how God has used that chapter in my life. I remember praying for someone one day, and I could tell that something was holding her down, and all of a sudden, Romans 8:1 came to mind, and I was able to pray that truth over her sternly, letting her know how God saw her. Since then, Romans 8:1 has been the one verse that I’ve held in my heart whenever something gets me down.

I remember reading Romans 8 a lot when I was in China, in a time when I was really struggling with some sins, and also from a lack of Christian community. It was one thing for me to read the Word every day, but another thing for me to learn how to place it into my heart. It was one thing to read about how the Holy Spirit lived in me, and how God had made me His son and coheir, and how I would never be separated from his love, and another thing to know those truths in my heart.

And somewhere along the way, I kind of forgot what God had taught me these past years about my identity in Him. We as Christians need to learn how to wield the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. We need to learn how to proclaim these truths over people, and to ponder these truths in our own hearts.

As Christians, we are called to be humble, but there’s a fine line between genuine humility and false humility. There’s a line in the Final Quest that says that genuine humility is agreement with the truth. But sometimes that truth can be really awesome, and something that people don’t believe, because it is the awesome. One things I’ve struggled with is this idea of God telling us that we are not sinners anymore. It’s pretty clear that I do sin, but God also makes it very clear that He sees me as clean, and that He sees me as a saint, able to do the same works (and even greater ones) that Jesus did.

It took me a while to figure this out, but God can do this, because we are not what we do in His eyes. Rather, we do what we do because of what God has done in us. Yes, we still sin. But that does not affect what God has done for us, and our identities as His children. As the people of God, part of learning how to wield the sword is learning who God has made us to be. It is not pride to believe this, and even more than that, I believe that this truth is something that can change the world. As Romans 8:19 says, the creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.