Navigating Life's Tricky Journey

 

Thursday, June 2, 2022

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.  The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants.  And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires.  These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions.  But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.  When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear:  sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these.  Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  There is no law against these things!  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.  Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives.  Galatians 5:16-25

The Apostle Paul’s logic is inescapable; those who truly belong to Christ live like it, while those who do not belong to Him travel a different path.  And any way you care to plot this on a graph, survey, study, or equation, both paths are the result, NOT causative.  If living like a Christian is how you become a Christian, then the pop-psychology of fake-it-til-you-make-it works. 

But that’s just not Biblical.  Paul also said that clearly:

God saved you by his grace when you believed.  And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  Ephesians 2:8-9

So the case Paul makes between Galatians and Ephesians is that we become (or start) our Christian life when we believe.  God’s grace accepts our confession of Christ as Savior and Lord; by His grace we are knit-into the fabric of Christ’s body, the church, and it is akin to becoming a soldier; you’ve begun training, but you’re not perfectly skilled in the art of battle.  You’re learning how to live authentically Christian…following Christ.  You’re also stumbling at times, giving place to anger, selfishness, lust, and more.  But, thankfully, there are those other times when you listen to the Spirit dwelling within you, and you live in love, joy, peace, gentleness…the self-control of one who has chosen the path of the Master. 

All this points to the reality that life was always going to be a struggle.  Paul understood this better than anyone:

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong.  I love God’s law with all my heart.  But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind.  This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.  Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?  Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.  So you see how it is:  In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.  Romans 7:21-25

For You Today

The journey of a believer can be tricky.  Just when we think we’ve become immune to Satan’s false leading we get blindsided by the old nature, and sin begins chipping away at our progress.  The Apostle knew he wasn’t perfect; he messed up with exceedingly poor choices, and some vile attitudes.  He also was humble enough to write it down for our sakes. 

If you’ve stumbled, don’t give up…give in to Christ’s forgiveness and strength.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©