The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Romans 8:5-8,
"Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God."
We fancy ourselves as being free... just to be ourselves. We are all unique and express ourselves in different ways. We all have different personalities, differing likes and dislikes, abilities and inabilities. We enjoy pursuing those things we find interesting and desirable, which may be unique just to us. We all have our own thoughts and perspectives on things and have our own wills we can exercise as we chose to do so.
However, from Paul's perspective, there is a sense in which we are not free, not in the least bit. We all have an inherent sinful nature and this nature has its own expression that is anything but unique. It drives a proclivity within us to find its expression it in all its ugliness. Our thoughts, words and actions expose its presence within us and its domination over us even as we may try to thwart its impulses. It is those very thoughts, words and actions that will bring us condemnation before the throne of God on judgment day.
Paul uses his own experience as a law-keeping Pharisee in Romans 7:14-23 to illustrate this. There he effectively demonstrates how this sinful nature dominated him and kept him from making the choices he wanted to make regarding the law God gave Moses. He found he was "sold as a slave to sin". He was incapable of doing what he wanted to do to please God and incapable of not doing what he did not want to do in order to please God. He concludes by saying, "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." Romans 7:21-23. A prisoner of the law of sin!
The truth is that although we make our own choices, those choices fall under control of an abiding sinful nature that dwells right within each person. As a result, "When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness." Romans 6:20. In Paul's despair he found Jesus Christ delivered him from the control of his sinful nature and the result: "now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life." Romans 6:22.
In short, while we have built within us a will that provides us the opportunity to make our own choices, those choices will always fall under the domination of either the sinful nature or God's Holy Spirit. As the old Bob Dylan song goes, "you're gonna serve somebody". We all do!
How wonderful our God has provided us the opportunity to move from under the domination and control of our sinful natures to serve him!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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