It Ain't Easy

"And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in mount Hor, by the coast of the land of Edom, saying, Aaron shall be gathered unto his people: for he shall not enter into the land which I have given unto the children of Israel, because ye rebelled against my word at the water of Meribah. Take Aaron and Eleazar his son, and bring them up unto mount Hor: And strip Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son: and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people, and shall die there. And Moses did as the LORD commanded: and they went up into mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments, and put them upon Eleazar his son; and Aaron died there in the top of the mount: and Moses and Eleazar came down from the mount." Numbers 20:23-27

Have you ever wondered why or how Christians in prominent positions fall? Well one very important reason is that it is not easy to live a righteous life. "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23), the Apostle Paul reminds us. If it were easy everyone would live a sin free life and never disobey God. Very few people can claim to have served God as faithfully as Aaron did. Yet before he could inherit the promise he was stripped of his priestly robes and left to die on top of mount Hor. You see we are engaged in constant warfare against our fleshly desires. The flesh has very persuasive ways of making you think that you are right even when God tells you that you are wrong. In the case of Moses and Aaron they felt justified in their anger against the Children of Israel. After 40 years of service to an often ungrateful people your body and mind becomes fatigued. Today many who call themselves Christians give in to fornication, masturbation, pornography, lust and adultery because they feel justified in their flesh. They believe they have denied themselves long enough and feel a need to indulge themselves. But here is the thing, the flesh can never justify you. As the Apostle Paul points out, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." (Romans 7:18-25) Notice that in verse 18 Paul points out that although there is no good thing that dwelleth in the flesh, it contains it's own will. That is why we struggle against it. The flesh knows what it wants and it pursues it with a vengeance. But praise God for our risen saviour, Jesus Christ, who defeated sin and the grave and justified us to the Father. It is crucial to our survival as Christians that we not forget "The Way" which is Jesus Christ. If we keep our focus on Christ and his Word (to feed our mind so that it can resist the flesh) we will endure and have victory over the flesh. "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:31-32