Don't Gratify Sinful Desires

LIVE BY THE SPIRIT AND YOU WILL NOT GRATIFY THE DESIRES OF THE SINFUL NATURE. Galatians 5.16.

My wife told me today about a friend of hers who was celebrating her birthday. Apparently she said that she is ready to die and go because the world is becoming more and more wicked. But that is no surprise when we note the apostle Paul's description of the last days in his second epistle to Timothy, chapter three. Wickedness of every kind will abound he said! That is what we see today. Don't you and I too struggle with our sinful natures. We are saved and probably have been Christians for a number of years! But the struggle continues! It may come to you as a consolation that the apostle Paul too had the same struggle for some time in his early Christian life. In the epistle to the Romans in chapter 7, he describes vividly the mortal struggle he was waging against his old sinful nature.

You will learn from Paul the way to victory through Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit’s power. “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing…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! Through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death” (Rom 7.18 – 8.2).

We are so blessed by God that He has given us His Holy Spirit to abide (stay) in us. As children inherit their earthly father’s property, we have inherited our Heavenly Father’s Spirit. It is His job to work in us and by His incredible power remove our sinful nature and produce the nature of Christ!

All religions teach us to be good but they provide us no power or help to be good! But we Christians have the distinction of having the Spirit of God to dwell in us always. God wants us to keep the Law and the commandments. But God knew that in our fallen human nature it was not possible. Through the blood of the cross of His Son, Jesus Christ, God has forgiven our sins. By the power of the Spirit He has put in us, God enables us to do the impossible – live like Christ and keep the law!

It is a fatal mistake for you and I 'to keep trying' not to do evil! We cannot, as Paul found out! All your determinations and deliberations won't deliver you! That is why God wants to do it for you. Your victory over your sin comes only through Jesus Christ. But we must respond to the working of the Holy Spirit in us. How do we do that? Listen to Paul.

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.” How do you live by the Holy Spirit? The apostle explains, ‘be led by the Spirit’. Again he says, ‘keep in step with the Spirit’. It simply means: Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you. What He asks you to do, you do. What He asks you not to do, you stop doing. That is all you have to do. The Holy Spirit will give you the power to do this. If and when temptations to sin or to give in to your sinful addictions come, call on the Holy Spirit to deliver you. The pity is that to most Christians 'the Holy Spirit means nothing!' You know the Holy Spirit exists! But only for name-sake and He has no consequence in your life. Dear believer, it is by the Holy Spirit that God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son, who are in heaven, is present with you today! It is through the Spirit and by His incredible power at work in you that you are expected to live a life of victory on earth! Not by yourself! Trust Him!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord, You know how I struggle with sin. Help me to stop struggling and simply trust in the Holy Spirit and seek His power to overcome my sin. Amen.