“We will, of course, be flawless – one day.  No hint of perverted desire, no sleepless nights when our minds race mercilessly from one worry to another, no fear of becoming close to people that’s fueled by memories of earlier hurt.  All of that is ahead of us, in Heaven. 

But for now, struggles continue. 

Through personal experience, I’m aware that digging about in our life to find relational pain and self-protective sin is difficult business.  And unlike the miner whose spade work is rewarded by the glistening of precious metal, it seems the more we dig, the more mud we uncover..

The logical response to the mud we uncover seems to be to cover it up again, or to find some way to rinse it clean.  To stand there, making no effort to move away from the pain, seems utterly unreasonable…To make no effort to clean up the mess and to live without self-protection is terrifying.  It feels like the route to death…

The present power of the gospel lies not in its ability to generate an internal warmth that overcomes every experience of disappointment and struggle.  If that’s its claim, then I’m ashamed of the gospel.

But if its claim is that dead people can live, that people who haven’t the slightest hope of eternal happiness can live in Paradise forever, that a way has been made for sinners who deserve to suffer at the hands of a wrathful God to be declared righteous and therefore fit for relationship with God, then, with Paul, I am not ashamed.

The gospel’s power today lies in its resources to help us overcome a demanding spirit and to replace it with trust as we await the full revelation of its power, the day when sinful people will enter Heaven as loving worshipers of God, when further sin will be unthinkable and pain will be unknown.”

Inside Out, pg. 189, 190, 191, 192