So do we sit around and wait for an apple to fall on our head while we contemplate/meditate/pontificate? I realize what the scriptures say. I also know what my gut tells me - and that what we do with our time here has to matter, otherwise life is not as important as the scriptures say it is. Grace is not given randomly. I would think it requires asking for it. Jesus never mentioned sitting around waiting for it. Of course I say this, after asking for two decades and nothing... I still don't feel delivered from sin. It still is ruler. I thought being born again means that you have the power to go without sin - to be disgusted by it and not want it. Jesus said that when believers ask, that He will keep the devil away from them. I guess I'm not a real believer because my flesh wins the day no matter how many times I ask God to keep the temptations distant.
Codi, when a person becomes born-again Christian, he/she is given a new heart, a new nature. The bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." But, in 1 John1:8-9, it says "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins, and to cleans us from all unrighteousness." That might sound like a contradiction, but it isn't. Those 2 verses are saying that a born-again Christian has a new nature, the Holy Spirit comes inside the new believer and creates that new heart/nature, but the new believer still has the old sin nature. What this means is that the born-again Christian will face a daily battle for the rest of his/her life; a battle between the old nature & the new nature. Every day the Christian must choose to walk in one of those natures. IOW, everyday ask, "today will I walk in God's Spirit of will I walk in my flesh?" That is our choice. I admit that some days I choose to walk in God's Spirit, but other days I lose that battle.
Reading God's Word helps us with our struggles. For example Galatians 5:16-25 has a lot to say about the matter of our daily walk, v16 "This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh."v17 "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these things are contrary the one to the other so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." v18 But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law." v19 -21 Paul says that works of the flesh are manifest in adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such.
Next, in verse 22-23 Paul says, "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Then in verse 25 he says, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit." Paul is speaking to Christians here; not to unbelievers.
Most mornings, when I get up, I will ask God to help me walk in His Spirit that day; I'm not proud to admit that some days I forget. I have learned some things about how to approach the daily battle we all face. For example, one thing I have learned, and this is something I have struggled with for a long time, is that getting angry with someone over something he/she did does not help the situation, but usually makes matters worse. For example: In March of 2024 my wife went out to check our mailbox. She chose to go through the garage, so she had to open the garage door, which is connected to an automatic door opener. A few months earlier our neighbor had 3 armed men force open their garage door and break into their house one morning at around 2am. After that happened, my wife insisted that I put a manual bolt lock on our garage door; and of course I did just that. Well, when she went out to check the mail that day the garage door was not locked. She locked it thinking she was unlocking it, and when she mashed the button to open the door, the opener pulled one side of the door up about half way while the other end of the door remained in place due to being latched to the side rail. Not understanding what she had done, she ran in the house and announced to me that something was wrong with the door and that I needed to go look at it. The 16 ft. garage door was twisted badly & bent out of shape, and had to be completely replaced. At that moment I had to choose whether I would react in the Spirit or in my flesh. I knew that if I became angry with my wife that she would be emotionally crushed, so I chose "gentleness," and laughed & said "hey, I could have done the same thing. I think I'll take that latch off the new door." We both laughed about it, and I called a garage door guy who came out the next day and installed a new door for $1190. You might think that is a lot of money, and you would be right about that. But my wife means more to me than any amount of money.
Another example of how God's Holy Spirit has taught me how to choose to walk in His Spirit is that I have learned a new way to react to people who work in public places and sometimes they will do something that might cause someone to become angry with them, like maybe make a mistake with an order, or maybe have a problem with the computer/cash register and take extra time to take an order, and I have learned that if/when that happens to me, and it does happen often, to just be patient, "longsuffering," and smile at the person, and show some grace about the matter.
Codi, can you see that we are all in a battle between our flesh and the new heart God has placed in us? This is a battle that unbelievers do not face because they do not have that new heart. Jesus does not remove us from the battle; he helps us to get through it. In Galatians 1:1 Paul says "Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." We have liberty through Christ to choose to do the right thing.
John
