New Morning Mercies #237

Yes, you live in a world where evil still exists, but the One who conquered sin and death is still with you.

It is the disastrous duo—the evil outside us and the evil that still remains inside us. It is not just that we live in a world where evil still exists. If that were our only problem, life would be much easier and simpler. No, the danger of the external evil that we all face every day is made incredibly greater by the evil that lives inside us. You see, it is only ever the evil inside you that magnetizes you to the evil outside you. Sin is only ever attractive to a sinner. It really is true, “To the pure, all things are pure” (Titus 1:15). The problem is that none of us are yet completely pure. Yes, by the operation of powerful grace, we are purer than we once were. But here is our dilemma: our purification from sin—that work that will not end until every last microbe of sin is eradicated from every single cell of every heart of every believer—is a lifelong process and not a single event. The process of heart purification is taking place in the environment of a dramatically broken world that is not functioning as God intended and where evil lurks around every corner. And there is not a day in our lives when internal and external evil do not intersect somehow, some way.

Are you discouraged as you read this? Does it seem to you that God’s will is both irrational and impossible, as if life in the fallen world is the ultimate nasty trick? Well, you must remember that you have not been sent out into this world on your own. You have not been asked to do the impossible in your own strength. You have not been asked to journey through this dark world all by yourself. And you surely haven’t been asked to comfort yourself by denying the presence and power of the internal and external evil that you deal with every day. As Jesus was sending his disciples out into this dark world to bring the message of the gospel to those enshrouded by evil external and controlled by evil internal, he said something that really changes everything: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:20).

Jesus doesn’t send us out with a pack of principles and promises. He doesn’t just guide our travels with a set of rules. No, he does so much more. He comes with us! He knows that we’ll never make it unless he is with us in every moment of every situation, location, and relationship. He is not a rescue squad that leaps into action in our moment of trouble. He’s there with us in trouble because he’s been there with us all along. In our struggle with evil, he gives us the only gift that will help us—he gives us himself, because he knows that in him we really do find everything we need until our journey has ended. He is the best gift of his grace.

For further study and encouragement: Isaiah 7:10–17 and Matthew 1:23