The believer is a new being in Christ Jesus. This means that the new life in Christ is now the believer’s default life. You see, for every new thing, there must have been an old one.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Galatians 2:20
Every believer in Christ used to be alive to sin-actively sinning and consciously doing whatever pleases them. However, the new life in Christ now made it impossible for us to sin, by giving us a new life through death. This death is not a cessation from life, as opposed to what many think it is. It is a transition into a new life-a better life. A dead man is a different man. In addition, you cannot trace him to who he used to be because deadness transforms us and brings us into the new life in Christ Jesus.
You will realize that a complete human is made up of spirit, soul, and the body. The body is what makes us a legal entity to live on earth. With the body, we interact with the world around us. The soul is the seat for our mind, thought, consciousness, and reasoning. Subsequently, your spirit is your real self, and that is why at salvation, the spirit becomes saved eternally (John 3:16, Ephesians 1:13), but the soul is being saved (1Peter 1:9).
The soul is the intermediate between the body and the spirit. This is why it takes some process of mind renewal for the soul to be saved because it intensely interacts with the physical world. The soul has understood many things about the world system, which the body (sometimes called the flesh) communicates to it. Subsequently, the Spirit cannot die. But the flesh dies, and it is required that the flesh dies so that the spirit can come alive.
Deadness of Your Flesh
Often, if a person lives only to please the flesh or bodily desires, sin becomes a lifestyle to such a person. The truth is that your body (the flesh) has cravings, desires, hunger, passion, and willingness to do things that appeal to it.
“For all that is in the world-the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life-is not of the Father but is of the world.”
1 John 2:16
Lust manifests through the flesh. However, what distinguishes a believer from an unbeliever is that you no longer live by the flesh as a believer. You now live by the spirit through your new life in Christ Jesus. At salvation, you took off your fleshy and bodily desires and exchanged them for the life of Christ.
Subsequently, no human on earth can live without sinning if the person does not have the Spirit of Christ. The best anyone can be without Christ is a moralist, and morality does not keep people from the life of sin. This is because the seed of Adam, which causes humans to sin, is in everyone. Therefore, you cannot stop sinning just because you want to stop.
No! This is where the struggle is.
Some Christians believe you overcome sin by how much you muscle-up strength on your own. This is not true. Many things about this world do not answer to human ability, and one of them is SIN.
Sin is a powerful and spiritual force that controls humanity, but it only takes a dead person not to sin.
Do dead people talk?
Do they take action?
A dead person is lifeless, immobile, and handicap.
Likewise, when your body dies, it’s no longer about you but Christ that lives in you.
The New Life in Christ Revealed
To understand what the new life in Christ means, you must first comprehend what Jesus did on the cross for our sake. At the crucifixion, Jesus’ body was nailed to the cross. It was a symbolic act to condemn the works of the flesh (Romans 8:3).
In addition, Christ knew the implication of what the flesh was capable of achieving. He knew that the flesh has its power to fight. Therefore, Christ carried the flesh to the cross and destroyed it there.
You will realize in your personal life that there seems to be wrestling between the desires of your flesh and what your spirit wants. The fight is in your mind, and it is called the battlefield of the mind.
Most times, the battle becomes fierce because you have tilted more to your flesh than to what Christ did for you on the cross. You need to begin to see that an end came to the works of the flesh the very moment Christ died in the flesh. So, your life is no longer to please yourself, your cravings, and your sensual desire, but to please God, who had given you a new life in Christ.
Christ’s death on the cross was the peak of His submission to God. Christ obeyed God in the Spirit by the submission of his flesh to be condemned on the cross. Through this single act of obedience to God, Christ obtained for us victory over the flesh and its works. This is why salvation is of grace and by faith.
Furthermore, when Jesus died on the cross, He said it is finished. What Jesus meant was that the war is over. You have a new life and that life is in Christ.
Remember, Christ died so that you may live again. He died so that the flesh will no longer have power over you anymore. Therefore, live as a victor in Christ, not as a victim of sin.
Your Life Pleases God by your New Life in Christ Jesus
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
John 12:24
In the verse above, Christ provided an illustration of a grain. Do you know that this was not a mere illustration of sowing and reaping? It was a demonstration of the new life in Christ Jesus. The grain of wheat standing alone represents Christians who try to please God all by themselves. You do not try to please God by your effort. Pleasing God should and must never be a struggle. It is a life in the spirit, and it is by our spirit we please God.
Now you will understand why some Christians still battle with sin, despite Christ’s complete victory over sin on the cross. You see, the devil takes advantage of some believers’ ignorance of the victory in Christ and how it can keep them from sin. What you don’t know about yourself will enslave you to what you are really not.
Dear believer, you are no longer a slave to sin. You are a child of God, and as such, the Spirit of God resides in you to please the Almighty (Philippian 2:13). Your life pleases God because He sees Christ rather than the sinful you whenever He looks at you.
God is not in search of those who will try to please him. No! God is not in for trial and error. Regardless of what you try in the flesh, it cannot suffice to what God had completed for you by His Spirit. The more you try on your own, the more it gets messy.
Enough of this unending struggle because you will never please God this way. Fix your gaze on Christ, and you automatically please God. Christ is the completion of the will of God. You please God in Christ.
Let the consciousness of Christ be your lifestyle henceforth. See Christ, talk Christ, speak Christ, and love Christ. Live a Christ-like life. The more of Christ you feed your soul with, the less of the manifestation of the flesh you see. Let this new life in Christ become your reality.
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