So you want to live a godly life? A life of love, peace and joy? You have to ask, because some Christians do not care. I have had people tell me that they do not care about living for Christ, they do not care about the truth. Twice in the last few months I have people saying – and I am talking about Christians, one even wants to be in ministry – tell me “why would I read the Bible, what’s in it for me”. Sheesh! So, I am speaking to those of you who want to reflect Jesus on earth and live in victory over sinful, selfish behaviour.
There are two things you have to do to overcome habits and negative behaviour patterns. Firstly identify. What I mean by that is identify yourself with Christ. You are a new creation in Christ Jesus, you are free to put off the old man because you are a new creation. You are born again, and the old man is dead and he isn’t coming back. You are one spirit with Christ. You are the righteousness of God, you are sitting together with Christ in heavenly places. You are at peace with God! That’s the truth! You need to know it, and reckon it as true. Identify with it.
The more you realize who you are in Christ, how glorious your reborn spirit is and how full of fruit you are, the easier it is to live that way!
The second step is instruct. You have all the glory of God trapped in the earthern vessel of your flesh. So you start to identify what is in your spirit, and then instruct your flesh how to behave. You can tell your flesh what to do.
It’s not true that in every situation, even if you know well who you are in Christ and in the spirit, that you naturally want to flow with the fruit of the spirit. No, at times your flesh will want to really go in a different direction from the love of God. You have to instruct your flesh, you have to take the position that you are superior to your flesh, and like a parent with an unruly child, you have to train your flesh what to do.
At first, your flesh will tantrum, over and over. It is used to getting its own way, and it is used to doing everything in the most carnal, most worldly, most lazy way possible, and you have to fight that. You have to remember that you are a new creation in Christ, that you are the boss of your flesh, that your flesh has no power over you, and that your flesh has already been crucified (Galatians 5.24). You are the boss, your spirit – the real you – can now put to death the misdeeds of the body and tell the body what to do (Romans 8.13).
When your flesh starts to tantrum – sleep when you want to pray, watch inappropriate films and TV shows, lose your temper, miss church on Sunday, gossip about someone, whatever it is – you take charge. You get up one hour earlier and you pray an extra hour. You watch sermons of great preachers until you cannot watch another minute. You get up and go to church an hour early and help serve. You push your flesh around.
You tell your flesh “NO”, you tell it that you are not going to be pushed into inappropriate, immoral behaviour. You tell it that you have a living spirit filled with fruit and you are going to live for the spirit.
The more you do that, the more your flesh will line up with you – you can train your flesh. It will always have a go, but you will learn how to make it stay in line. Keep in sweet fellowship with the Lord, keep the Word in front of your eyes and ears, and live above it.
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