Likewise you also, reckon
yourselves to be dead to sin,
but alive to God in Christ Jesus
our lord.
Therefore do not let sin reign
in your mortal body, that you
should obey it in its lusts.
Romans 6:11-12
How often is it that we use the word "lust" to apply only to an intense sexual desire: that is correct, but is not the only use of the word. The word "lust" is not always bad, for to have "lust" for life, that is an ardent desire to live the life you have is not bad if the life you live, the pleasure you desire is a health desire, and it is healthy if the foundation for you desire is you living in obedience to God. Before the "lust" for life is a good thing there must be a reckoning in you that you are dead to sin. If sin reigns in you, then your "lust" is not a good thing and is based on an illicit desire, a pleasure that is not of God. I saw an ad for a car on TV and the hook line was that this car would incite your lust for it, and so you could do nothing else except buy this car, or at least have an insatiable desire for that which you may not be able to afford. How often do we allow ourselves to be swayed by the secular world, their need to sell, and to sell under any pretense, so that you would spend what you do not have, that which is not in your bank: so you do, and this on a credit card thinking that you can make the payments, you have enough income to do so, and so that you may overlook the fact that the car you have is taking you to wherever you go, and that the desire, the "lust" for a new one is only to satisfy your ego. So you buy! Then the unthinkable happens, you are let go from your job, the company you work for goes out of business, and now you can no longer afford that "lust" that drove you to buy what you do not need. If this is the case, and there are times when you need to buy what is needed, there is nothing wrong with owning a nice car (I am using the car as an illustration) but are you putting away money to be able to buy a car if indeed you need one? If as a Christian we are not doing what is necessary, and if we are doing that which is unbecoming a Christian then all we have done is present out bodies to be instruments of unrighteousness: "And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:13-14). By God's grace you have eternal life, that which you did not deserve; the question is if God is give to you eternal life, what are you giving back to Him? Eternal life is not a gift from God, eternal life is the gift of God and the question then if this gift of God is given to you; does God have dominion over your life? Or, does the world? If we do not decide to live for Jesus Christ, then, we are deciding to live for sin. Are we living in our energy, or, are we living in the power of the Holy Spirit, that is to live life for God, to be obedient to God? Oh! How we manipulate the law of God to fit what we think is our need. We find any excuse to do things that are not Scriptural. Jesus Christ made His life to be ours, we are to be identified with Him. Are you? We think of eternity as something future, it is not! Time does not exist in eternity. Your eternal life began at conception, and your eternal life as a chose child of God, began when you were enabled by God to choose Him. The life we live now is temporal, it has an end, but life goes on into eternity, yet we so often live as it is something separate from us, something we will get when we die.
The law of God instructed us as to what God wants from His creation, and showed to us what is sin, but we have been delivered from the law, a law we could not and cannot keep perfectly, we sin, but now Jesus Christ came and fulfilled the law, He did not take it away, He fulfilled it, and the sin that the law illuminated showing us a better way is not to be found in Jesus Christ and His death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven to sit eternally at the right hand of the Father making intercession for all those that God the Father had given to Him. Paul makes this fact: "Therefore, my brethren, you also have become dead t the law through the body of Christ, that you may be married to another--to Him who was raised from the dead, that we should bear fruit to God" (Romans 6:4). The fruit is not what some make it to be, that is, to be a missionary, or a preacher, or to be a teacher, to make disciples, it is all of that for sure, but it is more than that it is as Paul wrote: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires" (Galatians 5:22-24).
It takes time to decide definitely to be totally identified with Jesus Christ. But time is not an excuse for not making progress. If you are not making any progress, you may need help from a mature Christian, or you may simply need to get off your "duff" and do what God asks of us. We have the power of the Holy Spirit, but why would the Holy Spirit help us if we are not doing anything towards our sanctification? It isn't knowledge, that is good, it isn't to be done solely in our own power, that is necessary, No! We must become devoted to God, to His Son, and not simple believe what God says will happen, this belief must be the ground, the foundation of our life in every part of our body, our thinking, and then live the full life, the life that God has given to you. Step away from trying to please the world, whoever that may be, whatever that may be, those things that would distract you and entangle you: "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage" (Galatians 5:1). Let me excite you; you are free, you have liberty, stand fast for God, for His Son, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead you, you are free to enjoy this world, we are free to love and even to desire good things, and all this is done in the freedom that we have in Christ as we live for Him.
Do not be deceived,
God is not mocked;
for whatever a man sows,
that he will also reap.
For he who sows to his flesh
will of the flesh reap corruption,
but he who sows to the Spirit will
of the Spirit reap everlasting life.
Galatians 6:7-8
Be Obedient and Leave the Consequences to God
Richard L. Crumb
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