119:67 Before I was afflicted I went astray,
but now I obey your word.
71 It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.
I used to think that transformation meant that I was trying to get to a point in which I would be pure in thought, not even thinking about sinning, where sin would become an alien concept in my mind.
I believed having such thoughts meant I'm still a work in progress and to some extent I guess that's true. But I had misunderstood how sin and temptation works. We can never escape our fallen nature in this life as our eyes have been opened to sin.
After reflecting on these verses, I have a slightly different view. There is a view that is common in predestination (once saved always saved) that if you are truly saved you are transformed such that you will never stray from the straight and narrow path. I don't think the idea is that true believers will never sin - that would be heresy. But I think (maybe I'm wrong) the idea is that the truly saved will never reject God. Which implies that they are immune or protected from the temptation to do so.
I listened to a podcast about how a pastor testified that the more progress he made, the greater the obstacles that Satan puts in his path. And that struck a chord with me. It's no different from when we are trying to learn something new. It's easy at first but as we get to higher levels of proficiency, true mastery becomes more elusive and frustrating. It is tempting to give up.
The obstacles take on new forms that were not present when we first started out. In my journey of faith, the first obstacles appeared when I saw people in church and thought "They're not very different from me ". I wanted to sin no more and become a better person. I became disillusioned - I failed to realize that we are all on our own personal journeys and should not judge. I didn't know where they had started, what they've gone through and what they were going through.
Hebrews 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin.
Temptation never goes away. Jesus was tempted as well. To be tempted means you have to recognize the sin. If I think I can't even be tempted, I have fundamentally misunderstood the idea. If Jesus was tempted, it meant he was presented with a conscious choice - as God he could not be tempted but in human form he understood it. God created us with free will such that we choose Him of our own accord. Otherwise we are just robots.
The verses in the Psalm above provide another clue. We are afflicted so that we can learn. Do we learn the decrees all at once? No it is a process.
2 Corinthians 12:9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
The farther we go along the road to salvation, the greater the affliction and temptation. We will not become more comfortable but we will become more uncomfortable in that we will recognize more and more how truly fallen we still are. And I think Paul is sort of saying the same thing. Whatever we think we have overcome, that's a temptation waiting a little down the road. I think about humility a lot because in my mind, even if not in word or deed, I am arrogant. The key though is that I am convicted of this sin and so consciously fight against it. It will always be there, lying in wait. But through Christ, I can overcome it.
