Richard Baxter
My Pondering
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23
Unless you are fighting with the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power, you are fighting a losing battle no matter what.
As a disciple of Christ, you can win plenty of battles and rest assured, our Commander in Chief, none less the Jesus Christ has already won the ultimate victory.
The question is how will you and I play it out. Yes we fight physically, mentally and most importantly is spiritual war.
As the great warrior, the Apostle Paul stated:
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin
Romans 6:11-14
and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body,
to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness,
but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness.
For sin will have no dominion over you,
since you are not under law but under grace.
Friends, he is playing high-level chess here, not a kids game of checkers. He is referring to multiple dimensions including Christ’s propitiation of our eternal spiritual state of grace and the active present physical & mental battle.
Yes, we can by the Spirit’s power check sin. By strapping on our spiritual armor as explained in Ephesians 6 as a courageous commitment Christian soldier we shall slay our share of sins and demons.
Slay sin or it shall be slaying you.
Pull sin by its roots or it will be pulling you down.
Atrophy sin or it will be paining you.
Eradicate sin or it will be eradicating you.
Squeeze and choke sin out or it will be squeezing and chocking you out.
Poison sin or it will be poisoning you.
Kill sin or it will be killing you.
Sin to our faithful good works is a lot like weeds in a garden. Weeds, their propensity to appear, are always exist so long as there is dirt, so long as we are in the flesh. Good gardeners use proven methods to remove the weeds. Let’s be good gardeners for God.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
Romans 7:18-19
Thus the sinful weeds are always present in some shape of fashion, We can’t totally expel them but we can indeed control and minimize them.
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Romans 7:21-25
Wretched man that I am!
Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind,
but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
For if you live according to the flesh you will die,
Romans 8:13
but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body,
you will live.
Life is hard at times, but God is good all the time for our future glory is all bright. No more sin, struggle, sourness or sadness.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Romans 8:18
Let’s no longer be victims but victors!