My Sunday Skl

God is going to give us a brand-new one at the resurrection. But what about right now?

In the meantime, becoming a Christian and living like one is almost like moving into an old dirty house, where the old owner didn’t take care of it at all. You can try cleaning up, painting the walls, and maybe even filling it up with new appliances until it feels totally different on the inside. It’s the same house from the outside, but it’s brand new on the inside.

1 Corinthians 5:17 :

¹⁷ Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!

Paul realises that he is a new creation in Christ, and “although [he] want[s] to do good, evil is right there with [him]”.

This battle with sin was obvious to him and was stated so often and clearly. You ever feel that way? “I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.” Sometimes it may not even be because we want to do evil, but it’s our flesh that stops us. One example that is surprisingly common is with testimonies. I’ve had this feeling and I know my friends have too. God has done something good in your life and you want to testify, but something is holding you back. Fear? Anxiety? Maybe it is just the inner battle with your flesh taking place.

And I know, some people have already excused it and said it’s not that deep.

“That is minor though.”

Alright, same way lying to spare people’s feelings is minor.

We tend to categorise sin. To us, being a drug addict or wife beater is despicable. Maybe because these are so visible and the destruction, they cause is so terribly obvious. But God sees it all as equal.

I think the sooner we recognise these “small” sins as equal to the more apparent ones, the more likely we’ll be able to achieve that level of spiritual sensitivity to sin which Paul had.

There’s also something else we can do to swing the odds more in our favour.

1 John 1:7 :

⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

The blood of Jesus will keep on purifying us from sin as we walk in the light. Sorry, what?

Well, it’s only when we’re in the light that we can truly see our sin.

Hmm, go on.

Alright, so a Christian who is not walking in the light may say that bank robbery is bad, but that “borrowing” their flatmate’s food without asking isn’t.

“I mean they’ll probably say yes anyways right!”

 But a Christian who is walking in the light of God’s word would recognise the two as equals. Their sensitivity to sin has grown and their perspective is changing from their own to God’s. The closer you get to God’s perspective, the more of your own sinfulness you see.

We’ve gone over this before. Though the battles may get fiercer as Satan may try to entice the flesh to keep the Spirit from directing you, your awareness of this struggle like Paul may in fact be a signal of your growth in grace, rather than your lack of it.

So, I’ve recognised the struggle. I realise that I am constantly facing temptation and falling, but how can I get victory over it?

Let’s start with the long-term solution. It isn’t a secret that Christ’s victory over sin at the cross and our salvation in Him provides the victory we need over sin. Though, when Paul says, “thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”, I don’t think he was referring to here and now. Really, I think he is referring to the second coming of Christ, where this flesh of ours will be defeated completely.

Looking at the next chapter, Paul even states his hopes “that The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” This is what he was looking forward to. This was the end goal. To be fully liberated and set free from this flesh he would have to struggle with until he died.

So, victory over sin will ultimately be realised at the resurrection of the dead, when God does away with this body of lust?

Yep.

Okay, but what am I supposed to do until then. I am fighting a losing battle right now!

Short answer. Galatians 5:16-18.

¹⁶ So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. ¹⁷ For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want. ¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

I think the answer has been stated consistently throughout Paul’s messages. We may feel like we want to sin, but we don’t have to, and we do have the ability to say no. There is no one forcing us to sin. The devil has his power sure, but all he can do is tempt and influence our flesh. If we are constantly feeding the spirit whether through prayer, reading God’s word or even worship during church to name a few,  we can over come the laws of sin. In the same way, if we starve the flesh by denying it certain images, shows, songs, people or any other things it craves, we can tame those wrong desires.

One cool way of putting it is like flying. See, we all subscribe to the law called gravity. You learn from and young age that whatever goes up must come down. We all agree that this law takes place and is something we cannot deny. Yet, at any given time, there are about 500,000 people up in the air. The law is still acting on them, attempting to drag them down, but there are other powers acting, in this case it’d be a battle between aerodynamics and gravity. We recognise that gravity is trying to drag those planes down and crash, yet we still get on those planes, because we believe we have the power to overcome that law, because we have prepared against it.

In the same way, prepare for the battle, because He will prepare a way for you to win it.