Genesis 4:7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

Since Jesus is knocking at the door, and sin is not with Him, then sin is crouching on our side of the door. In order to open the door and let Him in, we must push sin aside in order to let Him into us. Yes, into us.

Since we cast sin aside does that mean that sin is no longer in us?

The answer to that question is found in the abiding presence. Sin cannot exist in the presence of God. So what happened to the sin that was crouching at the door? The door is the door to our heart. According to the promises of Ezekiel 36:26 we have been given a new spirit and a new heart. Since He lives in us we become His temple according to 1 Corinthians 3:16.

What we struggle with are scriptures like Paul laid out in Romans 7.

Romans 7:15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.

Want and hate are functions of the mind but this new heart is now the seat of right choices led by the power of the Holy Spirit. When we make a mental choice it is not by faith, it is what we want, but not necessarily what God wills for us. Choose what is right in our hearts and our actions will serve God.

Is everything I choose to do by rational thought of the mind sinful? No, but if God was not the author of that choice then it does not swerve His will. Paul felt very deeply about serving God for he was a zealot for the law and then became a zealot for love. If he did not love perfectly, it wounded him, not because he did something wrong, because it did not glorify God.

That is my conclusion and mine alone. Others might feel differently and that is fine. We are free to come and go as we please.

Psalm 121:8 The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Whether of the mind or of the heart, we are still the Lord’s.

Job 9:19

If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?

It does not surprise me in the least that the word contest is found only once in the ESV.

Lest we forget ourselves let us look at context.

Job 9:18-20 English Standard Version

18 he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness.
19 If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him?
20 Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse.

Job makes an emotional response to a physical sensation. That is of the world, the flesh and he blames God for how he feels and therefore subject to all the ill will that comes with living. It is a feeling of helplessness, a loss of hope.

What I see in these verses is what I see. What I believe is how I live and breathe. I am accountable to God for what I say in this world.

What I see is that I can take what I know to be true in Kingdom Living into the world but I cannot take that which I see and believe in the world and infect Kingdom Living. The Sword of the Spirit protects the Way.

Genesis 3:24

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life.

That has not changed from the very beginning. God does not change. 

When we are in fellowship with one another we must remember we do not summon Him. He is there to serve the Father’s will. We will be held accountable for what we say to one another. 

We should confess our weaknesses but in doing so be careful not to accuse God. I may not like what is going on in the world but it is not God’s fault. The God of justice will adjudicate justice on His terms, not according to our wishes.

I would hope that no one would be proven to be proverse. If it is so, let it be the hand of God to prove and not we ourselves.