The War Within

We know that all people have sinned and have fallen short of the Lord's standards.  God sent His Son to die on the cross for our sins.  Jesus shed His blood for you and I.  When we realize that we are sinners and confess our sins to Him and receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we can know we are saved and headed for Heaven.  The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in everyone who has put there trust in Jesus Christ.  We know all of this.  We have heard it before.

There is something we don't seem to talk about much and that is our sin nature is still there within us, that is our fleshly nature.  Sometimes we forget it is there.  We have the Holy Spirit living in us and we can say no to sin and we should.  We should always honor God with our bodies and our minds and our entire being.  Sometimes there seems to be a war raging within us believers.  We want to honor God and do good, but our fleshly nature wants its needs met.  We can be rather selfish as well and want what is best for us instead of considering what the Lord wants us to do for Him. 

I am reminded of what the Apostle Paul says in Romans 7:14-25 which says,

"We know that the law is spiritual;
but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.
I do not understand what I do.

For what I want to do

I do not do,

but what I hate I do.

And if I do what I do not

want to do,

I agree that the law is good.

As it is no longer I myself

who do it,

but it is sin living in me.

I know that nothing good

lives in me,

that is in my sinful nature.

For I have the desire to do what is good,

but I can not carry it out.

For what I do is not

the good I want to do;

no, the evil that I do not want to do-

this I keep on doing.

Now if I do what I do not want to do,

it is no longer I who do it,

but sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work:

When I want to do good,

evil is right there with me.

For in my inner being I delight in God's law;

but I see another law at work in the members

of my body,

waging war against the law of my mind

and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work

within my members.

What a wretched man I am!

Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Thanks be to God-

through Jesus Christ our Lord!

So then,  I myself in my mind

am a slave to God's law,

but in the sinful nature

a slave to the law of sin."

Paul talks about the battle within us.  We want to do good, but sometimes we go off track and follow our fleshly desires.  I know that there is nothing Christ like about me in my fleshly nature.  My only hope is found in Jesus Christ.  He is the One who died for our sins and He gives us the Holy Spirit to dwell with in us so that we can say yes to the Lord and no to sin.

We must consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive in Jesus Christ our Lord.  We are no longer under condemnation when we come to the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:1). 

We shouldn't sin, but there will be times when we will.  When that happens we must go to the Lord and confess it to Him and He will restore our fellowship with Him (I John 1:9). 

Let us no longer walk according to our sinful nature, but let us walk in the Spirit.

Lord,

Thank You, Jesus, for saving a wretched man such as myself.

Thank You that You paid the price for our sins.

Forgive us our sins of commission and our sins of omission.

Lead us and guide us to live for You each and everyday.

In Jesus name,

Amen.