So, my brothers and sisters, we must not be ruled by our sinful selves. We must not live the way our sinful selves want. If you use your lives to do what your sinful selves want, you will die spiritually. But if you use the Spirit’s help to stop doing the wrong things you do with your body, you will have true life.
The true children of God are those who let God’s Spirit lead them. The Spirit that we received is not a spirit that makes us slaves again and causes us to fear. The Spirit that we have makes us God’s chosen children. And with that Spirit we cry out, “ Abba, Father.”
And the Spirit himself speaks to our spirits and makes us sure that we are God’s children.
If we are God’s children, we will get the blessings God has for his people. He will give us all that he has given Christ. But we must suffer like Christ suffered. Then we will be able to share his glory. Romans 8:12- 17 ERV
I wonder if I am the only one.. who found that I walked closest to the Lord as a brand new Christian.. not as a mature one.. years down the road? Pride, worry, fear, envy, anger, self-indulgence.. all seem to be considered the 'norm' for many Christians.
Do you wonder why for some of us that is the case? It's quite simple. When we come to the Lord, fresh from the world.. we know we are sinners through and through. So we rely completely on the Lord to do anything.
We need the Lord to help us conquer sinful habits in our lives and we know it. We are willing to give up just about anything to the Lord who rescued us from our sinful selves, gave us the promise of eternal salvation and who loved us with an everlasting love.
We are at our most humble ever.. and know how truly bankrupt we are. We are in love with Jesus as our rescuer.. and any good we do.. we give him full credit. We love the Lord only.. and nothing else. When I first came to the Lord, I literally 'ate slept and drank' Jesus. I couldn't get enough of His word.. and if I felt guilty about anything, I didn't argue about if it was 'ok' or not.. I just gave it up.
I didn't want to do anything that might offend my Dear Lord.
However, at some point.. we get away from the cross and our inherent sinfulness and inability.. We try harder to live the Christian life and expect that some how we should 'perform better'.
The truth is that our flesh is simply unable to improve. It's sinful through and through. We are like little children.. completely dependent on the Holy Spirit to help us walk the Christian life.
We should live holy lives. But we can't. We need that grace both for salvation and sanctification. The solution is not to try harder. As Paul said, "Having begun in the Spirit are we now made perfect in the flesh?" Folks, if we can't save ourselves then why in the world do we think we can somehow sanctify ourselves?
God never intended for us to live the holy life He called us to in our own strength. We need the Lord to live his life through us but to do this we must first die.
I have been crucified with Christ [in Him I have shared His crucifixion]; it is no longer I who live, but Christ (the Messiah) lives in me; and the life I now live in the body I live by faith in (by adherence to and reliance on and complete trust in) the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself up for me. Gal. 2:20
Why is there such a big gap for most American Christians between salvation and real sanctification? It is I think because we have so much pride that we begin to think we both ought to and can live Holy lives.. in our own strength. We forget we are sinners saved by grace.. and that becoming the Lord's means death to our life on this earth as we know it. We like this world honestly and don't like giving up our freedom to 'choose'.
When we fail we try harder and eventually when the doesn't work, we give in and simply excuse our sin as normal and bank on God's grace to cover our sins even though we aren't repenting. The worst state is when we justify that sin claiming our liberty in Christ. Eventually, the Holy Spirit quits trying to speak or we just can't hear any more cause we aren't listening.
If you want to be free and experience the Lord living through you, you must realize that you are bought with a price.. and no longer belong to yourself. Your 'normal life' needs to stop now.
So how do we go back to our 'first love'? The key is to see what the next step is.. where did we get off track? As Oswald Chambers describes in Conformed to His Image, this is where the Holy Spirit steps in. When we are new Christians and our conscience starts bothering us of all those things that used to not bother us, we are tempted to despair.
It's hard to give up those things that seem so innocent. It's hard to give up the things that we know are bad too. But whatever the Lord has confronted you with, you need to deal with head on.. and be willing to let Him free you from that sin. Some things are not inherently sinful, just fleshly. Just because others are free to do something, doesn't mean we are. I Cor. 10:23 If your conscience is bothering you, then you need to give it up.
We need to die.. along with the Lord. Our flesh must be subdued. Often it is our bodies that lead us most into sin. So self-indulgence is a real enemy of spiritual freedom. Rationalizing our sin, leads to guilt. Disobeying leads to doubts and confusion about our spiritual condition or even our salvation.
Obedience is an open door back to your first love.. true joy.. peace.. and freedom from the painful consequences of living according to the flesh.
It's hard work and is sometimes downright painful.. but afterwards yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
11 For the time being no discipline brings joy, but seems grievous and painful; but afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it [a harvest of fruit which consists in righteousness—in conformity to God’s will in purpose, thought, and action, resulting in right living and right standing with God]. Hebrews 12:11
Dear Lord,
I pray these things you have been showing me this week, which have been such good news to me.. will bring the same joy and freedom and fruitfulness to my readers. Lord, help them to abandon themselves to your love... throwing themselves on your grace. Help them to listen to that still small voice and obey it and begin to experience true freedom from their flesh. May they be shining lights .. shining with your light.. and not their own.
Amen
