Obedience to God is hard for me. Sins of the flesh tempt me many times in a given week and as I live breath and type today i still have many problems even if God is with me.
Proper obedience to God is impossible for any of us. This is a primary assertion of the Bible. (
Jeremiah 17:9; Romans 3:9-12; Ephesians 2:1-3; Titus 3;3, etc.) Like begets like: A cat begets a cat, a dog begets a dog, an apple tree begets apples, and you and I beget more of ourselves. The only One who can beget true godliness is God. And so, when God calls you and I to a godly life, He does so intending to supply to us
in Himself all that we need to be godly people. In-and-of ourselves, we can do nothing, Jesus said (
John 15:5). Instead, we can do all things through
Christ who strengthens us (
Philippians 4:13). And he does so through the
Person of the Holy Spirit, the "Spirit of Christ" (
Romans 8:9), in whom we are given everything pertaining to life and godliness (
2 Peter 1:3).
So, what's happening when a born-again person (
John 3:1-7) in whom the Holy Spirit dwells (
1 Corinthians 6:19-20; Romans 8:9-14; 1 John 4:13) is not living in the power of the Spirit and being transformed by him, freed from the power of sin, as
Romans 6 says they are? Three things:
1.) They are not living by faith in who they are in Jesus Christ.
2.) They are not living in daily, even moment-by-moment, submission to the will and way of God.
3.) As a result of the first two things, the believer has a life crowded with sin that hinders fellowship with God and halts the Spirit's transformation of the believer.
How does this change?
The just shall live by faith. We walk by faith, not by sight. (
Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; 2 Corinthians 5:7) A spiritually "victorious" believer is standing by faith on the truth of who they are in Christ, in the face of temptation counting it so that who God says they are in Jesus is the truth no matter what the believer feels or experiences. This is what Paul was describing in
Romans 6:11.
It isn't sufficient to exert faith in the truths of who one is in Jesus Christ. Doing so must always be connected to a regular yielding to God's control. God does not fill up rebels with Himself. Submitting to God, however, is a particular thing; it isn't dependence, or obedience, or trusting in God. These things may overlap with submission but they aren't identical to submission. And so, it isn't yielding to God to do these things. No, the believer must consciously, explicitly submit to God's will and way, just as Jesus did in the Garden of Gethsemane (
Matthew 26:39), and also depend, obey and trust.
Finally, since sin bars us from fellowship (but not relationship) with God, it has to be removed from our lives by repentance from, and confession of, it to God (
1 John 1:9; James 4:7-10)
when it occurs.
A believer who walks by faith with God, trusting to their identity in Christ in the face of temptation, who submits to God in the midst of temptation (and in life generally), out-loud, consciously giving Him control of one's thoughts, desires and actions, over and over in rapid succession, if necessary, and who "keeps short accounts with God" through repentance and confession of their sin, is one whom God will bring free of the power of sin, over time sanctifying their living and deepening their communion with Him. There is no other way but short-lived, strenuous, Self-effort that always ends in failure and exhaustion.
