Not too long ago, my flesh jumped up and down with its dastardly desires. When it did, my emotions took a nose dive and before I knew it, they were on the floor getting stomped on. I wasn’t having much fun, to say the least.
That is the way our flesh works. It jumps up and down inside of us trying to control us and when it does, it makes us feel miserable. And sometimes, it makes the people around us feel miserable!
I was crying out to the Lord off and on during this time. Finally, I said, “Lord, please help me with your life in me.” After a while the Holy Spirit reminded me of Romans 8:1-2 but He did it in reverse order starting with verse 2. “The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” I rolled that over and over in my mind and as I did, the peace that passes all understanding began to cut through all the negative feelings.
Let’s think about it together for a minute. The law of the Spirit is the new law which operates in us in the place of the Old Testament law. What is that new law? It is this: we have the life of Christ Jesus operating inside of us to overcome and free us from another law, the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is what we inherited from Adam. This is not the old nature because it was crucified with Christ. (Romans 6:6). It’s sometimes called the power of sin which is an unholy force in me but it is not me. It’s like having a splinter in your finger. The splinter is inflicting pain in me but it is not me. To make it clear, trying harder is not more powerful than this power of sin. Only the life of Christ in us is more powerful.
Next, the Holy Spirit reminded me of verse one. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He was saying to me that He knew how much I was being defeated but there was still no condemnation from Him. He also reminded me that this verse comes after Romans 7:15-24 where the Apostle Paul shares in detail his own story of devastating defeat sin.
What freedom! No matter how much sin defeats us, there is no condemnation! It took a while for my emotions to come up from the floor. The reason is that our emotions follow our thoughts much like a train caboose follows the engine. Your emotions may take some time to line up with the truth of the Gospel as well.
Have you ever heard of preaching the Gospel to yourself? That is what my story is really about. The Holy Spirit wants all of us to preach the Gospel to ourselves often- the complete Gospel. This is where our freedom is in Christ.
Believe it! It’s the Gospel!
