We can't change our flesh nature. Our flesh nature will forever be corrupt. Our spirit can be born again with the Holy Spirit. Our flesh is truly never altered and this is why we war within. This is why what we long to do seems all but impossible to do. This is why Christ came to do what we could not and cannot. This is why Christ is our HOPE. We are not our own hope! We can't sit here and hope to be perfect as if we'll find perfection in ourselves, as if we'll find ourselves transformed into some mythical innocent without a single wayward thought. We have to expect that our flesh is going to war against our spirit and know what to do when that happens. Satan would have us DESPAIR. Satan wants us to keep on believing that our relationship with Christ is forfeit because we have a flesh nature. Christ would have us CLING to Him. Christ would have us grow ever closer to Him. Whenever we find our flesh nature rising up in us, Christ would have us recognize it happening as the Holy Spirit convicts us in our hearts of the wrong that is occurring. That conviction leads us to repentance, to seeking forgiveness each and every time, but NOT despair. That conviction is a constant reminder of our dependency upon our Savior and not ourselves.
Heb_12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
We are to lay aside every weight, every sin that we easily fall prey to and this laying aside is the recognition of the sinfulness and a true hatred for committing the sin, the desire NOT to give into those sins. A true remorse that leads to our falling at the feet of our Savior and finding our strength to live in Him. Any sin that takes hold of us must be surrendered over and over and over again if need be until at last we THROUGH CHRIST are no longer subjected to it. We just can't despair! We can't let Satan tell us that we've done the same thing over and over and that we must truly not be remorseful, we must truly not want Christ. When Satan does this, he leads us to despair and this is where we cannot be led! We have to recognize our need, we have to recognize that Christ is our ONLY hope now and always, the VICTORY is in CHRIST, never in ourselves! We have to KNOW this in our heart to have true victory, true victory is our having CHRIST OUR SAVIOR.
(Excerpt) Articles on Romans by E. J. Waggoner Chapter 8
The Enmity.
Rom 8:7 "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."
The flesh never becomes converted. It is enmity against God; and that enmity consists in opposition to his law. Therefore, whoever opposes the law of God is fighting against him. But Christ is our Peace, and he came preaching peace.
"You, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight." Col. 1:21, 22.
In his own flesh he abolishes the enmity, so that all who are crucified with him are at peace with God; that is, they are subject to his law, which is in their hearts.
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