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Are you always struggling with a particular area of weakness in your life? - roadrage, overeating, jealousy, passive-aggressive behavior, and porn or drug addiction, just to name a few. And have you tried self-discipline/self-control or secular counseling but still fall into the same sin over and over again?
Remind Yourself: Good behavior alone doesn't mean redemption
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one (Romans 3:10); We are saved not because of what we've done, it is because of the blood of Jesus Christ, which wash our sins away and make us righteous before God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him (2 Corinthians 5:21). If you counting on your own behavior to make the change, you are making things more difficult. By invite Jesus into our current struggle, then we can conquer our weakness with grace and love.
Remind Yourself: Weakness is an opportunity
If you familiar with information analysis strategies, one of the most common practice is to seek risks or weakness in a series of business activities, because often these weakness are opportunities for the business's growth. This practice is useful in our spiritual warfare too! We don’t like to struggle, because struggling (and then failing) is humiliating to our prideful sense of self-worth. 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me (2 Corinthians 12:9). So ask Him to meet you right at the moment of failure; because the primary goal is to learn to trust Him.
We struggle in countless areas that need the grace of Jesus. When we try so hard with secular counseling or life-changing podcast or No.1 bestseller advisory book, and still fails, I am not saying that these tools are not helpful, but we forget that, by doing this alone we become self-righteous and thinking we could save ourselves from this falling world. The truth is, spiritual maturity is bigger than your “one” area of weakness. As we submit more and more to the Holy Spirit, we will also see an increase in the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. God alone is our resource, and all growth comes by grace through Him, but we are responsible to make the choice to obey.