The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;
as it is written in the prophets,
Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee.
The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.
John did baptize in the wilderness, and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.
Mark 1:1-4
KJV
I’m only human –
This is not an excuse.
I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ in liveth in me.
Galatians 2:20
KJV
Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost For His Highest:
Conviction of sin is one of the rarest things that ever strikes a man. It is the threshold of an understanding of God. Jesus Christ said that when the Holy Spirit came He would convict of sin, and when the Holy Spirit rouses a man’s conscience and brings him into the presence of God, it is not his relationship with men that bothers him, but his relationship with God – “against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done evil in Thy sight.” The marvels of conviction of sin, forgiveness, and holiness are so interwoven that it is only the forgiven man who is the holy man, he proves he is forgiven by being the opposite of what he was, by God’s grace. Repentance always brings a man to this point: I have sinned. The surest sign that God is at work is when a man says that and means it. Anything less than this is remorse for having made blunders, the reflex action of disgust at himself.
When we become a follower of Jesus Christ we are made new. Christ formed in us.
When we surrender self, God gives us the Holy Spirit to work in us.
All this I have spoken while still with you.
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 14:25-26
NIV
God gives us everything that we need to live in this world in a way that honors and glorifies Him. He does not leave us on our own but gives us His Word to teach us, His Holy Spirit to guide us, but we must choose to obey Him. We must choose each day to take up our cross and follow Him. He will not “make” us obey. It is a choice we must make for ourselves.
Yes, I am only human, but in Christ I can do all that God asks of me.
The first step on the journey is repentance.
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