We own an above ground salt water pool with metal top rails. Each year we have to take a wire brush to these top rails and paint them with white Rustoleum because the rust keeps eating through the metal. After picking up numerous pieces of metal on the bottom of the pool, we finally bit the bullet and replaced the metal rails with new composite salt water proof rails.
Biblical Christianity is about replacing the metal with the composite rails, not painting over the old ones. It’s about replacing me with Him, not adding Jesus to me. When Christians focus on their behavior, rather getting at the lie in their thinking, they will get stuck in the sin-confession-sin cycle. They’re painting a new behavior on top of the old behavior, which will eventually rust through.
If we want to replace us with Jesus, we must let the Spirit expose the lies in our thinking, replace them with Scriptural truth and then empower us to exercise those truths in our daily lives. If you want to keep working on the same rail year in and year out, focus on the metal rails – your behavior. If you want to be free from all that work, let the Spirit renew your mind (Rom. 12:2). True freedom from our drugs of choice comes when Jesus replaces our character with His.
Set “Free” Nowww