Released

“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer life, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing.” (Galatians 2:19-21)

Paul here is saying that he could not get a new nature through any other way than his fallen nature going to the cross and getting this new nature from Christ. Live here, is the word zao, Strongs #G2409, and it means resurrection life. And body, is the word sarx, Strongs #G4922, and it means a frail and fallen human nature.

What is your nature? We see animals that operate instinctually and say, “it is in their nature.” For instance, there are examples of people trying to domesticate a little tiger cub. They love, care for it and treat it like a pet. Then one day, the “pet” mauls them to death and eats them out of the blue. As cute as they may look, we know their instinctual nature is that to kill.

In the same way, we have an instinctual nature that we are born with to sin. We can have great parents who feed and care for us and train us up in good ways, but at some point, without knowing Christ and receiving His nature, sinful passions will be aroused by the law that is at work in our bodies, bearing fruit of death (Romans 7:5). It is in our inborn nature to sin. We just can’t get around it. If we say we never sinned, we lie (1 John 1:8-10).

But how do we know what sin is outside of having the law? The law tells us what is right and wrong. The law not only tells us what is wrong but provides us with consequences for sin.

We see this with the very first murder by Cain of his brother Able. The blood of Able cried out from the ground and Cain experienced consequences of being separated from God for his actions. While love for Cain was present, the law was enacted.

Cain tried to absolve himself of responsibility to care for his brother. His heart lacked love and was cold. When he received consequences, he was concerned for himself and afraid of what others would do to him. We also see in Adam and Eve when they sinned, hiding, blaming, fearful and full of shame. This all came up as a result of their sin. They were no longer in freedom but wrapped up in bondage. As sin causes bondage because of the law.

We never see anyone who is out murdering people genuinely joy filled, content, loving God and others, giving their lives away in unselfishness, radiant, and compassionate. Rather, their countenance most likely is dark, they are hiding and manipulating and wielding things to get their way and fulfilling cravings and desires. This is the law at work bringing death.

The law brings justice and judgement. We do not really get away with anything. Our laws mirror this by putting further constraints on people who commit significant sins that cause others harm. It keeps them from further causing harm and provides some external consequences as well as the internal ones. The Lord sees all and knows all. When we sin, it may feel good at the time, but we are getting hooked into bondage that causes pain in our lives.

As people continue to sin, it eventually overtakes them and begins to control them. Romans 1:24-25 says, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.”

We can also see this with Judas. The Lord did not call him out or confront him but his sin was weaving a greater and greater web of disease in his life. He did not become more satisfied and contented as he sinned. Rather, he became more discontented, more greedy and more hungry, longing for something to quench his cravings for more. He also became more easily offended and deceitful. After betraying Jesus, he came to a realization of the law of death that was happening in his life and, and rather than repenting and drawing to salvation, this drew him to end his life. He hated life and was miserable.

Hosea 8:7 says, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

Sin never solves problems or makes things better. It is rebellion and under God’s wrath through the law. I have seen this with my own life as I was young growing up. I did not know Christ. And the law of sin and death were still at work in my life. I struggled with bouts of significant depression, anger, strife, constant offenses, toxic shame, confusion at times and misery. I felt hopeless and helpless and was just trying to survive the best I could.

Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:8-11 says,

“We know that the law is good when used correctly. For the law was not intended for people who do what is right. It is for people who are lawless and rebellious, who are ungodly and sinful, who consider nothing sacred and defile what is holy, who kill their father or mother or commit other murders. The law is for people who are sexually immoral, or who practice homosexuality, or are slave traders, liars, promise breakers, or who do anything else that contradicts the wholesome teaching that comes from the glorious Good News entrusted to me by our blessed God.”

Often people who are in sin and rebellion, do not want to hear “the law” that they should do different. Rather, their desire may be to “throw off constraints.” However, it does not change the consequences of sin. One may pretend they are free from the law, but our human nature is under the law and subject to its judgements. In other words, we reap from what we sow. It is only through Christ and the Spirit that we partake of life by faith through grace.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 3:5 (AMP), “He has qualified us [making us sufficient] as ministers of a new covenant [of salvation through Christ], not of the letter [of a written code] but of the Spirit; for the letter [of the Law] kills [by revealing sin and demanding obedience], but the Spirit gives life.”

When we become born again, everything changes. Our whole nature and innate instincts change when we become born again. While we may still sin, but we no longer experience the weight of the law with its judgement. Rather than a slave, under the law, we are sons, set free from wrath and judgement as we are under grace. We are forgiven and loved as we repent.

Romans 7:4-6 says,

“Therefore, my brothers, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to Him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God. For when we lived according to the flesh, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, bearing fruit for death. But now, having died to what bound us, we have been released from the law, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.…”

What an incredible gift this is! If you have ever been under the heavy weight of sin, this freedom is an immeasurable difference. He gives us beauty for ashes and joy for mourning. Our lives are completely turned. Yet, the fullness of this does not happen all at once. When we are saved, we enter into the new life. But we learn to walk this new way of the Spirit out over time.

Paul, who is saved, goes on to say in Romans 7: 18-25

“For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Here he is saying that when we are born again of the Spirit there is a war that goes on within us. There is the sinful old nature at work in us that gives us cravings for things that will bring us death. Yet, The Spirit is at work in us delivering us and setting us free. More and more, as we crucify the flesh and “die daily” to the sinful nature, we come more and more free to walk in the fullness of the Spirit. So it is death to the flesh and old nature by crucifying it that brings us life through the Spirit.

Yet, our innate nature has changed. We have a desire for His freedom from sin and bondage that comes with it. We begin to have innate desires for things of the Kingdom. I remember when I first got saved and found the Word of God, I was so enamored with it (and I still am!) I love the word of God and I am always hungry to learn more from it.

In my young years, I struggled with understanding how things worked in the world. There was a lot of dysfunction in my home. And as I was in foster care and as I went to live in other houses, they didn’t have the same ways of doing things. Nobody explained the new rules to me, they just assumed I understood. But all I had known was the dysfunction I lived in so I didn’t get it.

For example, I had once had broken something in the bathroom at my foster home. Because of my father’s background and hurt he had in his life, he was never given grace. So he didn’t have grace to give to us kids. Because of this, I lived with a “if you break a cup, I break your arm” mentality. It was just the way things worked.

So in my foster home, when I accidently broke something in the bathroom, I hid it inside the toilet. I knew they eventually found it, but they didn’t say anything to me about it. I thought they must be really seething with anger and I was overwhelmed with stress about it. Not mentioning it, just made the anxiety about it worse. But they were giving me grace and cared for me despite my shortcoming. I just didn’t understand grace at all.

When I got the Bible, it was such a treasure as I had all the rules and right way to live. It opened up to me what things were supposed to look like. It was like someone finally explaining the rules to me. It brought such joy to my heart and I studied it day and night.

Yet, what I found, is that I also tried to live it out in my own strength. When I read it, I could see a list a mile wrong of things that I had got wrong in a day. It bothered me deeply. As I was telling the Lord how amazing His love was but how I was so undeserving of it, I felt God speak to me, “You will get there in My time, so let go into my love that is so sublime.”

I wrote it down but thought to myself, ‘I am not hearing God correctly on this.’ And because He loved me so well, I worked all the harder to get it right [in my own strength] and follow His Word. And then I would wake up at 3:00 am with terrible anxiety attacks having processed that I sinned just waiting for the hammer to fall. God would break every rule to meet me at these times and tell me all was okay. Sinning and falling short, He just met me with so much love.

Getting it right is not the ‘work’ that God is looking for from us. It is by faith in Christ and bringing God into our places of sin that we lean into His strength and we will grow in this nature. It is not by self-effort and following the rules in our own strength that we inherit the land but by surrender as we trust Him. It is the Spirit who works within us in changing our nature. Half the battle is putting to death working hard to get it right in our own might.

Even the rich young ruler that had practiced the laws with all his might since he was young, could not enter into the Kingdom and live by the Spirit by his own self effort. It was exactly what was keeping him out. He was experiencing the blessing from making many wise choices and became rich. So Jesus confronted his heart sin of holding to this wealth and told him to give it all away. And he walked away sad because he was cleaving to His wealth rather than God.

He refused to believe and put away his old ways of thinking how things worked in the world. But what is impossible with man, is possible with God. The Lord says in Ezekiel 36:26-28, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God.”

Over and over, the Lord tells us that our work is to believe (trust) and His work is to cause us to walk in His statutes. When the blind man from birth was healed by Jesus, the man was faced with confronting the religious community who were upset about it [as they were jealous]. They kicked him out of the temple as a result. Then Jesus came to Him and asked, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”

Jesus wasn’t done with the man until He had this conversation with Him about belief. Healing the man was amazing but not the end result that Jesus was looking for, rather belief in who He was. The man came to understand that it was Jesus who was the Messiah and told Jesus, “Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him (John 9:38).

All this to say that “getting it right” is not living out the Word as much as it is believing and letting the Word be lived out in us. There is a big difference. One is in the place of self-sufficiency and the other is in the place of surrender and trust. One is living under the dysfunction of a father mentality, “you break a cup, I break your arm” and the other is living under a grace mentality, “I already paid the price, let me pick you up and help you walk it out.”

Father, I am amazed at the ways that You love us so well. Thank You for loving me so well. My life is never the same. So grateful for the Holy Spirit in our lives that helps us to live for You and with You. Free us from any worldly and dysfunctional framework of Your love.