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Define the concept of “holy tension”. What desires conflict in this battle? How does the New Covenant help us face this tension?
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Holy tension is the point I realize how God created me to be and where I’m currently at. It’s admitting that I’m being drawn to fleshly desires and not living with a passion for who God is. There is a battle between the selfish, flesh side and being able to hear the Spirit of God calling me to see the vision He designed for me. I struggle to do the work He’s put before me. The New Covenant relieves this holy tension by revealing God’s provisions. These include: being forgiven and accepted, knowing my identity is through Jesus Christ, having a new heart that was placed in me and understanding that the Spirit resides in me to the glory of God.
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Holy tension is realizing we long to be set apart for God and yet we are aware that we often fail to do it. The new covenant let us know that though we are less than perfect and yet Christ is perfect that through Him, we can claim to be righteous. We should not rill on things that we fail and rather pick ourselves up and through His love, move towards holiness in our daily trails.
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It’s the space between who are are and the things we desire, versus who God created us to be and who we want to be when we seek him before all else. We have sinful hearts, and we will always be pulled to try to make like work for ourselves to make ourselves “happy” with earthly pleasures and comforts, but ultimately we will always be disappointed. The New Covenant provides forgiveness for all of the ways we try to look to other things, but it gives us a new identity outside of what we do. And this allows us to move toward Christ for our fulfillment without shame or condemnation, but knowing that He is all that satisfies.
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Holy tension is the tension of the difference between what we were designed to be and who we long to be in Christ versus the person that we currently are that clearly is not where we long to be. There are desires of importance that we wrongly believe are the most important desire and even turn these desires into demands. These are in conflict with the desire to be who we were made to be and long to be as a Christian. We have a new purity or acceptance before God and a new identity as a Christian to understand who we are, a saint who sins. These things help free us from our past sense of shame and perception of who we are. Then we have also been given a new inclination or new appetite to do and be who God intends for us to be and the Holy Spirit provides the power to address this tension between where we are and where we long to be.