Be Convinced of the Old Nature and TAKE the Very Life of Christ

We need to seek God in prayer to show us our divided hearts. Seeking the face of the Lord must include seeking this revelation about our divided hearts; but, we are often careless about it, there is no true seeking of conviction within us. God’s commands to me are my responsibility. Though the Holy Spirit is in me with power, my responsibility doesn’t go away. It is my responsibility to allow the Spirit to “put off the old nature and to put on the new.” It involves putting to death the deeds of the flesh by the power of the Spirit, praying continually that God would renew a right spirit in me and sanctify me completely, pressing on to maturity. Which one are you feeding, your old nature or your new nature? The one you feed will rule in you.

Be convinced of the desires and tendencies and works of the old nature.

Sin is always exceedingly sinful and evil (Rom 7). Here is a partial list of sinful nature’s desires, tendencies and works. They include all behaviors and actions resulting from pride and selfishness, such as, envy, jealousy, rudeness, impatience, anger, bitterness, condemnations, unforgiveness, not accepting people, etc. They are all sin according to God (Eph 4:31-32; Col 3:8; 1 Pet 2:1).  Also, all of the following are of the flesh and are sins: lying, self-reliance, self-trust, self-dependence, self-seeking, self-will, self-confidence, self-exaltation, self-praise, self-pleasing, mistreating others, including controlling and dominating others. (Eph 6:14; 1 Pet 3:15; 1 Pet 1:3; 2 Cor 1:9; Ps 31:14; Heb 10:35; Jer 17:7) Is your heart accepting and believing the following basic truths? Salvation is salvation from sin and sinning, so “that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way.” (Col 1:10)

Pleasing God must include not sinning, and confession when we sin. Be alone with God, and meditate with Him on the following few questions, and ask and patiently wait upon His revelations and convictions about them. Be patient, God is after your heart, and your heart yields very slowly to God. Here is a partial list.

Does my rudeness or using harsh words look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my criticizing and condemning look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my not forgiving look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my jealousy and envying look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my self-occupation look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my boasting before men look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my lack of meekness or lack of humility look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my lack of gentleness and impatience look exceedingly sinful to me?

Does my lying and telling half-truths look exceedingly sinful to me?

Dear disciple of Christ, in your own strength you cannot get rid of desires and tendencies of the flesh or human nature. You cannot live a holy life by the power of your own determination. Trust Christ to do it for you, trust Christ, He is your life. Notice: trusting God means not trusting yourself. Not trusting self means carrying the cross in order to crucify self-trust on it. This is the mistake we repeatedly do:  it is not enough to resolve or persist to do everything we can do, while also trusting God to help us carry through our determination. Instead, determine to trust God and persevere in this trusting, “to work in you to will and to do,” (Phlp 2:13). God will do by His own power. If we do not believe that sin and the sinful nature is totally and completely evil and wicked, and is our mortal enemy, than we are not aware that denying self must be entire, complete and absolute. How desperately we need to seek God’s revelations and convictions. This command of denying self and carrying the cross is God’s solemn and consuming demand. I absolutely and completely NEED the life of Christ to live in me – daily, moment by moment. Are you seeing your God given spiritual responsibility?

I must TAKE the very life of Christ, that’s in me; I must TAKE what is given by God. By faith and daily believing, I take Christ’s life every day in order to live His life in me in full power – instead of mine. The life of Christ within me is for (1) “To heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.” (Lk 4:18-19) and (2) for UNCONDITIONAL LOVING and SERVING others in HUMILITY: unconditional caring, unselfish serving, self-giving with humility, and belonging to God and therefore belonging to others too – and this includes point (1) above. I am not asking you if you believe the truth that Jesus is your life. I know you believe that truth. But I am asking this:Do you believe that Christ’s unconditional love and humility must live in you because you DO NOT have it? Do you believe that without Christ’s life living in you, you DO NOT have agape love and humility in you at all? You need Jesus to live His full life in you, your spiritual life is empty and nothing – this is the truth we are not seeing. We are victims of our religious flesh. You do not have spiritual life, only Jesus has life. Do you believe it? If you are believing it, you are ready to live life by faith.

It is not me, as a believer, helping God, my help belongs on His cross. Accepting a truth is not the same as believing. We often ignore our unbelief, and become dull of recognizing them. Check yourself: agreeing and accepting is not believing! To live Christ, we need to be experiencing our crucifixion with Christ, “I have been (my nature) crucified with Christ.” (Gal 2:20)