Sunday, August 4, 2013

August 5, 2013

Barbara and I were walking in downtown Fredericksburg awhile ago. We often do that. But on this day a beautiful Monarch butterfly caught our attention. He was flittering freely from place to place without a care in the world. He seemed to be following us so we got to observe him for several blocks.

We commented on how his life had changed. Once he had been a creepy crawling earthbound worm. Now he had wings!

He had been fundamentally changed by a tranformation of his nature allowing him to shed his "wormness" and sprout wings!

That is akin to the fundamental type of change that the Apostle Paul is talking about in Romans. It is that sort of drastic transformation that is required to deliver you from your sinful nature. You can no more rise to the level of your potential in God than the caterpillar could before his miraculous change.

The good news is that it is possible! If God can do that for an insect, He can certainly do it for you!

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." Romans 8:1-11

A worm crawls because he has to. It is his nature.

You sin because it is your nature. You aren't a sinner because you sin, you sin because you are a sinner.

But, by the same supernatural power that transforms a worm to a butterfly, you can be delivered from your sinful nature!

Are you tired of your "wormness"? Ready to soar?