Colossians 2:21-23 - Failure. Guaranteed...

"...[commands like,] 'You should not hold nor should you taste nor should you touch', which things are all unto corruption, according to the commandments and teachings of men, which is a word indeed having wisdom in self-made-religion and lowmindedness and unsparing of body, [but] not in any value toward satisfaction of the flesh."

-What we have here are some examples of man-made religion, man’s best attempts to be right in God’s eyes, and it is as old as the garden.  Recall that God told Adam to not EAT the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2.17).  But by the time Eve is attempting to clarify God’s command for the crafty serpent, it has been tweaked, to put it mildly.  Eve’s version includes an add-on prohibition - do not even touch the fruit (Genesis 3.3).  It is uncertain whether Adam added this at some point, or if perhaps Eve did it herself.  Most likely after being told not to eat the fruit Adam decided that it would be wise just to not even touch it.  Which sounds good in principle but the entire premise was then completely false.  Death would in fact NOT come by simply touching the fruit - certainly not physical death, and the serpent knew this.  Thus when Eve touched the fruit (Genesis 3.6) and did not die, her fatal conclusion that she could go on and eat the fruit with impunity proceeded straight out of that false premise.  And thus we came face-to-face with one of the fatal flaws of man-made religion - our best efforts to make ourselves right in God’s eyes are both misguided and doomed, destined to fail because the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall in the first place.

-Such was the journey of a devout young monk named Martin Luther, whose world was drowning in death and saddled with a corruption-riddled church.  He resorted to extreme measures of self-flagellation and fasting and floor-sleeping in a desperate-albeit-futile attempt to eradicate his sins and secure right-standing with God.  Eventually he discovered in Paul’s letter to the Romans the truth that justification and forgiveness of sins comes by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ - ‘the just will live by faith’ (Romans 1.17).  Man’s sincere attempts to attenuate and atone for his sins on his own are no doubt noble.  They appear to be wise for helping one to obey the commands of a holy God.  But the broader more salient point of those very commands is to show that we all fall short and are completely unable to save ourselves.  We all need a Savior Who will be our Perfect Substitute and Who will not only provide us with the forgiveness we so desperately need but will also give us the power every day to live a life that increasingly lives into what God wants and what truly pleases Him.  We are made right with God by grace through faith and we progress in righteousness by grace through faith.  We walk by faith.

-So then the question is, if these things, these ‘made-in-china-not-in-heaven’ commands are of no long-term value against indulging the flesh, what is?  Where do I find the path to victory?  How can I succeed in saying no to sin, in resisting temptation when it rears it’s ugly head?  Do-more-try-harder is a religious recipe for guaranteed failure.  The recipe for right living is not found in the cookbooks of man-made religion and self-help regimens.  As Paul will explain in the balance of this letter, success is found at the foot of the Cross, at the feet of Jesus, where the One Who successfully resisted every temptation the tempter could throw at Him boldly and finally declared, ‘IT IS FINISHED!’