Reign in life

It's okay to fall into temptation and then repent. It's a fine thing, I suppose, to "lose it" with your kids and then come back and ask forgiveness. It's nice that you're always honest with me from the pulpit and assure me that you fall repeatedly like me; and you're so transparent, confessing to me that you also constantly forget to trust in Christ and to rejoice. But when that's all you ever tell me I am not so greatly empowered.

I want to hear you say sometime that you do trust in God day by day, that you have been learning to be strong in him in moments of temptation. And I want to hear the stories pour out --- how you didn't lose it with your kids but managed to hold firm in faith and love because you were conscious of God (1 Peter 2:19), and how you called on his power when you saw the test coming (Psalm 50:15). I want to know how this walk of faith is changing you, and that you no longer stumble around in defeat but are living a new life.

Repentance and confession, yes. These are the graces that lubricate the fellowship of saints. But are these not given that we might also go beyond and see some better victories, lest we start to think that stumble-and-confess is all the height that we can climb? Did the Word not say that we would "reign in life"? (Romans 5:17)