The Secret to Life

I find it necessary to repeat parts of a post and comment as a follow to the Desiring Death post as these topics go together.  It is clarifying to me to have them together as a follow through of thought.  Parts of the below are taken from Curved Inward.

James tells us that we conceive our own desires, the desires birth sin and it is born, and then sin grows up and brings death.  We can also follow the very first sin and see how Eve had desire for the forbidden, sinned by doing the forbidden, and death was a result.  If we are all descendants of Adam and Eve who had this sin nature and sinned while living by themselves in a perfect place with no stress while walking daily with God, then we have this sin nature and it is easy to argue that our environment isn't as nice.  So what chance do we have to overcome this "devil inside" that I believe the band INXS was singing about in their '80s hit.  (Lyrics; Song)

The truth is we have no chance.  We cannot overcome our sin nature.  We may have been created as a very strong person and we can stand up to it for a very long time, but at some point, it will crush us.  Jesus said in Matthew 7 :26-27 "But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall."  No matter how strong we are, our house will fall and the stronger we are, the greater the fall.

Matt Ayers comments, "We have Good News today.  Through Jesus, we can rest from this battling.  Through the death of Christ, the “old sinful man” (Rom 6:6) can be put to death, once and for all.  We can rest in Jesus through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and in cooperation with the Holy Spirit, replace all of our old habits that were formed out of sin nature with the holy habits of Jesus.  Habits driven by love for others; habits driven by compassion, joy and peace.  The exhaustion that comes from vainly battling the sin nature inside of us will only die when we die because we are one with it.  We must die to ourselves.  That’s what this means.  We must take up our cross.  That’s what this means.  This is one of the greatest features of resting in Jesus."

When we cry to God to forgive our sins we not only want our sin removed from His view of us, we want it removed from our shoulders so we don't have to carry it anymore.  We want our sin to no longer be a part of us.  But, we fail to realize that while the sin is erased, our sin nature too often remains because we don't want it to be removed.  Until we are willing to die so that not another single child of God will be hurt by our sin nature, we do not want to have it erased.  Matt continues, "You see, the death of Jesus not only washes away our sin-guilt, but it also puts to death our very sin nature.  ...  The entire point of Jesus life, death, and resurrection was to put to death the sin nature."  

The only way to live apart from the sin nature is to allow the Holy Spirit to have occupancy and ownership of all that we are or want to become.  When we do this we have freedom.  Russ Klug comments that "we misinterpret what freedom means.  ... freedom means that since Jesus was the perfect sacrificial lamb and our sin nature was conquered in that death, we are freed from the impossible task of perfect obedience to the law.  Instead, we have the Holy Spirit who can provide daily victory over our sin nature. This is freedom from sure failure."

When we live in that relationship with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit dominating our life, we are living in the victory of our Messiah, the Christ.  The victory is over that part of us that focuses on us first; that part that wants to be served first; that part that tells us we deserve anything; the part that is ungrateful or unthankful; the part that finds fault; the part that has no hope; that part that "conceives desire" (Js 1:14).  It is at that place that we are able to live in David's words "I shall not want" (Ps 23:1). 

Imagine there is a place where you don't want except what you are led to.  Where you don't have something in you that is against any other person.  Where you are full of purpose, joy, and life.  Where your faith is full and there is no doubt.  It is at this place where we are complete and Jesus is there. 

This is the secret to life.