Category: Walking in the New Nature

So you may be thinking at this point in our discussion, “Yes Jay, you have quoted a lot of Scripture over these last few posts.  You have clearly laid out the we are now beloved children of the Father, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, containers of the divine nature, and co-resurrected with Christ.  You explained in great detail from Galatians 2:20 how our salvation included the death of the old and original version of ourselves and has been replaced by Christ living His life through us.  But there is still a crucial step to go.  How do we put all this beautiful spiritual reality into practice?”

Ah, this is a legitimate and tremendously important question.  After all, this is really the Christian life in a nutshell.  It is taking all that spiritual reality that the New Testament describes as having already taken place when we trusted Christ and marrying it with the physical reality we walk in; how we actually live.

We can comprehend the above concepts such as Christ in you, but until we feel it, live it, and experience it in our daily lives, have we really connected with that reality; does it really change our here and now?  If you feel like you are understanding the theology of our change inside, but don’t know where to start in fully stepping into it, you and I are on the same path.  And let’s take the next few steps together.

Remember, we live and move in a world of two realities; the spiritual reality and the physical reality.  In our spiritual reality, all kinds of new things have already happened to us in our relationship with God – a new identity, a new nature, a new power over sin, and much much more.  And it is our faith that brings all this spiritual reality into our physical experience.

This is why we say the Christian life is lived by faith.  And could this be why Christ beckons us in the gospels over and over again to believe, to have faith, to trust His words and life as true?

By faith, I believe the spiritual realities – the promises of God – can literally change my physical world.  By faith, I believe that my spiritual realities can become my daily experience.  This faith connection between the two worlds is a point that the New Testament writers consistently emphasize.  They are always showing us the link between the facts of our spiritual reality and the faith required to live into it.

Let me give you one example to illustrate.  In Romans chapter 8, Paul writes (and I paraphrase slightly to zero in on the main idea), “So then brothers, we are not under obligation to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, but rather to the Spirit, to walk in the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit because we are children of God.  We have not received a spirit of slavery and fear, but a spirit of adoption as children who cry out ‘Abba! Father!’  The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom 8:12-16).

Paul makes a direct link between our new identity as children of God (children in such an intimate relationship that we cry out, “Abba! Father!”) and our obedient behavior.  Our walking in the Spirit – behaving in a way that fits our spiritual identity, behaving in a way the Spirit would act, obeying God in this physical reality – is directly related to the spiritual reality of our identity as God’s children.

Do you see this connection?  The New Testament is saturated with this message.  This is who you are in Christ (spiritual reality); so you now have the freedom, the power, and the obligation to live in a certain way (physical reality) that fits your new identity.

We will continue to explore this beautiful and life-giving connection next time.

The Devil.  Our last enemy to consider is Satan; also known as the devil or the evil one.  Jesus taught us in John chapter 8 that at the heart of Satan’s character is a liar.  “The devil was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.  Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature; for he is a liar and the father of lies” (Jn 8:44).

At the heart of Satan’s temptations are lies.  Lies about Christ and His character.  Lies about Christ and His finished work on the cross.  Lies about Christ and His promised victory over sin in our lives.  Lies about Christ and His goodness.  Lies about Christ and His living inside us.  Lies about Christ and His love, acceptance, and forgiveness.  Lies about finding our satisfaction in Christ rather than Satan’s idols and ways.

So how do we overcome this last enemy and the temptations that come through his lies?  We overcome the devil by faith.  This is not just some kind of religious answer.  It has tremendous practical application.  The Bible teaches that “greater is He who is in you (God Himself) than he who is in the world (Satan)” (I Jn 4:4), and “this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith” (I Jn 5:4).  We overcome Satan – ruler of the world system – by faith.

What does this faith look like in practice?  It means that when Satan tempts us with his lies, we resist him by faith; our faith in Christ and our faith in His promises.  When Satan holds up a mirror to our failures and says “failure” is who you are, we rest in God’s promise that we are loved, accepted, and forgiven (Lk 7:36-50).  When Satan digs up our sinful past and says “sinner” is who you are, we believe God’s description of us as “holy and beloved saints” (Col 3:12).  When Satan puts his finger on a current sin challenge and says “go ahead and give in” since this is who you will always be, we trust in God’s promise that change is possible and sin will not longer be our master (Rom 6:6).

This resting, this believing, this trusting is done by faith.  We don’t try to outwork or outwit Satan.  We resist him and experience victory by believing God’s truth in place of Satan’s lies.

On more than one occasion, Jesus prayed that His disciples would be protected from the evil one.  We need that protection because Satan’s ways are so wily.  And one of his sneakiest attacks is to get us off the simple and clear message of the gospel.  Satan is happiest when we add all kinds of heaviness and nit-picking and rule-keeping to the gospel.  And Satan is most defeated when we feast on the true message of God’s grace.

Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, “”But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (II Cor 11:3).  Satan knows the power of the simple and pure gospel message to not only bring us redemption, but to transform us as well.  And he knows and celebrates the trouble we find ourselves in when we complicate the gospel.  When we add to the gospel with rules or arguments of minor issues or human logic that needs a pigeon-hole for every nuance of Scripture, we are adding a layer of complication that plays into Satan’s hand.

And the outcome of these additions is disunity, divisiveness, and disharmony and the death of our witness to the world.  Jesus promised, in His last prayer with His disciples in John chapter 17, that the world will judge whether or not the Messiah has come based on the unity of His body, the church.  And our witness is clearest when we practice the “simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ”.  By faith, we believe in the power of the simple and pure message of the gospel.  Christ has overcome the evil one and when we allow Christ to live His resurrected life in us, we will overcome the devil as well.

The Flesh.  We now turn to the enemy within; the flesh.  In the New Testament, the apostle Paul gives us three visuals, complete with action verbs, for defeating the flesh.  They are walking in the Spirit, crucifying the flesh, and putting on Christ.  “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh … those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit” (Gal 5:16,24-25).

Walking in the Spirit is living into all that Christ promised regarding the Spirit’s indwelling.  When we allow the Spirit of God to live the life of the Son of God through us, we are walking in the Spirit.  And I like the “walking” word picture used throughout the New Testament (Eph 4:1 and others).  There is an “action” to walking.  It is not a passive activity.

Here are some things Christ promised about the Spirit’s work in our lives.  We will hear the continuing voice of Jesus (Jn 10:27) through the Spirit (Jn 16:13).  We will be reminded of the words of Jesus through the Spirit (Jn 14:26).  The Spirit will be our Paraclete who comes alongside us; helping us to obey Christ’s commands (Jn 14:16).  And we will experience the fruit of the Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 5:22-23).  This is all part of walking in the Spirit.

We have also been called to crucify the flesh; to deal a death-blow to the flesh at every opportunity.  The Bible says, “Consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.  For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come on the sons of disobedience.  And in them you also once walked, when you were living in them.  But now you also, put them all aside” (Col 3:5-8).

Basically, we are to treat the flesh as if it were dead.  Do not feed it.  Do not listen to it.  Do not follow its wishes.  Don’t even poke it to see if it is alive.  In short, we are to crucify the flesh; treat it as if it were dead.  And in its place, we are to put on Christ.

“Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” (Rom 13:14).  The picture Paul uses throughout his letters is the idea of putting on the character and attributes and mindset of Christ just as we would put on the clothes in our closet.  There is a constant theme throughout the New Testament of laying aside the bad stuff and putting on the good stuff.

“Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other” (Col 3:12-13).  These attributes are what “putting on Christ” looks like.

What might be new to you about this theme is that it is not a drudgery.  Laying aside and putting on is not a daunting task.  You have been empowered by “Christ in you” to do it.  It is not another list, another task to be attempted by our self-effort.  It is fully relying on the Spirit to do His work inside us; conforming us to Christ Himself.

“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom 15:13).  May the God of hope through the power of the Holy Spirit cause you to believe in abounding ways that you can do this.  You can overcome the flesh.

How do we overcome the remnants of our indwelling sin and the enemies that stir them up?  How do we resist the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil?  We have talked often about the theological answer to these questions; overcoming sin by the power of the resurrected Christ literally living His life through us.  But what does that look like in practice?  Let’s take a look at some specifics.

The world.  We overcome the world by our love for Jesus.  “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (I Jn 2:15-16).

In the gospel of John, chapters 13 – 17, Jesus emphasizes the connection between love and obedience.  Simply put, our love for Jesus will motivate us to obey.  “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in my love.  If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full” (Jn 15:9-11).

When we abide in Christ’s love, the love of Jesus and of the Father abides in us.  And this love will so fill us up that our love of the world will grow distant and dim.  Our desire to obey will increase.  And the beauty and end result of this love and obedience is incredible joy.  There is a joy in obedience – when motivated by our love relationship with Christ – that completely supersedes the promised joy of the world.  Obedience is not a drudgery; it is a source of joy.  The lure of the world diminishes as we experience the joy of loving and following and serving Jesus.

Earlier in His upper room discourse, Jesus makes the same love and obedience connection.  “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.  And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper [Gk. Paraclete, one called alongside to help], that He may be with you forever” (Jn 14:15-16).  In this instance, Jesus promises a Helper in our quest to keep His commandments.

It is as if Jesus is saying, “Because you love Me, you are going to want to keep My commandments.  But you are not going to be able to keep them through your own self-effort.  So I am sending my Spirit to live inside you (Jn 14:17), and He – living inside – will empower your obedient life.”  Once again, it is Jesus Himself who provides even the guide within us to know and follow the way beyond sin.

This obedient life, energized by love, overcomes the siren call of the world; a world that is fading away.  “And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever” (I Jn 2:17).