Sometimes we surprise ourselves with our inner thoughts, some of which would be embarrassing if they were advertised on a billboard. Although we may have been nurtured in a Christian home, know the values accepted by the society, and have avoided breaking the law, we have not eliminated these errant thoughts from our minds. Someone steals our purse with our valuables, and we relish the thoughts of the punishment we would inflict if we caught the culprit. We hear the malicious statements made about us, and we begin to fantasize about the revenge we would take against the perpetrator if we could get away with it. If we are honest we come to the conclusion that we are by nature depraved creatures who are striving to live above the negative pull within us. We wish our minds could be so pure we didn’t have to battle these negative thoughts. To increase our dilemma God established laws and precepts so we might know the righteous standards we are expected to achieve, and provide the measure that will be used to determine our sin. After failing in our efforts to keep his precepts, we cry with the Psalmist. “Oh that I was predisposed to keeping your instructions.” Then there would be no battles, no striving against internal negative forces, no yielding to the devil, no falling into sin. The blessedness of the new birth is that it not only begins with an awareness of the sin nature in our hearts, but it also provides us with another nature that is not subject to sin. We have the option of choosing how we will live, either with the old depraved nature or the new spiritual nature. Our struggle now is in making the choice of the life we will nurture and make predominant. Once we choose the spiritual life we have the help of the Holy Spirit. This provides us with a heart disposed to God’s righteous laws and we will have victory over the depravity of the natural life. This is the way we want to live so we will please the Lord. However we must remember our old life is not completely dead and will seek to reassert itself, but if we treat it as if it is dead it will lose its power over us. Our agonizing cry of depravity can be transformed into a celebration of victory, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:25).
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 16:51:15 +0000
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