Romans 7:15-25
Paul, the great apostle of modern church times, confessed the following (The Living Bible)
"I don't understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I can't. I do what I don't want to - what I hate. I know perfectly well that what I am doing is wrong, and my bad conscience proves that I agree with these laws I am breaking. But I can't help myself, because I'm no longer doing it. It is sin inside me that is stronger than I am that makes me do these evil things.
I know I am rotten through and through as far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can't make myself do right. I want to but I can't. When I want to do good, I don't, and when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. Now if I am doing what I don't want to, it is plain where the trouble is: still still has me in it's evil grasp.
It seems to be a fact of life when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love to do God's will so far as my new nature is concerned; but there is something else deep within me, in my lower nature, that is at war with my mind and wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is sitll wiithin me. In my mind, I want to be God's willing servant but instead, I find myself enslaved to sin.
So you see how it is: my new life tells me to do right, but the old nature that is still inside me loves to sin. Oh what a terrible predicament I'm in! Who will free me from my slavery to this deadly lower nature? Thank God! It has been done in Jesus Christ! He has set me free."
If I where to tell you this was taken from the Diary of anyone of my disciples, would you believe it? I'm sure you would. It is the Christians that are really following Christ, not the Pagans or the half -hearted Christians, that experience the war of of their flesh against the Spirit. It is the Christians who understand the extent of their sinfulness (the sinful nature), that understand the extend of what it means for God to die on the cross. These are sober-minded people, who know that apart from the Cross, everything that they build upon is meaningless. They do not lust after the things of the world, nor strife in pride, to build upon their flesh. They live, minding their business and doing the work of God, with full awareness of the war against their flesh, claiming the victory of the Cross in their lives.
God can only use a man that is filled with the Spirit. And order to be filled, we need to take up the cross daily, and wage war against our very flesh. Many times, our greatest adversary is not Satan, but our old nature! Let's take this whole season to go deep - Crucifying the Flesh, and Move in the Spirit!
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