Life Ministries

 “I want To Change – So Help Me God!”
Romans 7:15-18

    In Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a mild mannered Dr. would drink a potion and change from a sweet innocent bookkeeper type into a hideous monster. When the potion wore off, He would feel very ashamed and say “I just can’t believe that was inside of me!” ”I can’t believe I would do those things!”  However, even though he knew it was wrong, he was strangely drawn to drink the potion again and again. There was this on and off craving…and an on and off feeling of power and guilt…“I want to do right, but I can’t seem to control this desire”.

    Have you ever felt like Jekyll and Hyde? We do something and then think “O why did I do that”… or “Why did I say that!” We know we were wrong, but we discover that there is a big gap between knowing and doing…between our thoughts and our actions. Paul struggled with this same issue.
    I Think that most people would agree that Paul probably was about as successful a Christian as you could find in the art of living the New Life in Christ Jesus, otherwise he could not say with confidence “Follow me” – or follow my example – “as I follow Christ.” But it took something …some kind of change…to get Paul from where he is in this scripture, to being an example to follow in the Christian life. What was it? As it concerns change in our lives, someone once said; “I’m not what I ought to be, and, I’m not what I want to be but thank God - I’m not what I use to be!”
    You can’t try to suppress your will and make yourself change! Just ask any smoker, alcoholic, or anyone who has ever made a New Year’s resolution! Usually after repeated failure, we decide, “Well, if I can’t change, then I’ll just stop trying!”  “I just don’t have enough “willpower!” Jesus said in Matthew 26:41 “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The problem is that we “quit trying” in the flesh! (Our will power)
    This scripture will cause problems toward understanding, if it is perceived ONLY through the doctrine of  the believer’s walk of victory in the power of Christ. Those truths tell of the believer’s power through the Holy Spirit, the defeat of the enemies power, and how we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And of course that is all absolutely true - if we are walking in the Spirit – if we are being spirit led.  But, we need to look at what Paul is saying about the sinful nature and how it co-exists in our lives even as "new creations in Christ." 
    What that means is even though we are Christians, we still spend a lot of time “walking in the flesh” rather than the Spirit. So, this struggle causes tension and we live as though we are having a “tug of war” with our spiritual nature.  No matter how much we try to please God and to be conformed to the image of Christ, we keep coming up short.
    If we were to stop at this point we are left with a pretty dismal and depressing picture of a war of hopeless conflict and tension between the flesh and the spirit. Thankfully, we are not left to dangle in despair, because all that Paul has announced has set the stage for his question as, he says, "Who will rescue me from this body of death?”…And then, he gives us the answer – “Thanks be to God--through Jesus Christ our Lord..."
    Deliverance from our sinful nature does not come through law, personal power, self resolve, or separation or a change of environment. All that has been said up to this point has been said to say this: Although both natures co-exist together in tension and conflict, only the stronger one will reign and rule in dominance. The stronger one will be the one that we attend to and spend the most time with. The stronger one will be the one that is fed, nourished and nurtured…the stronger one is the one that wins over our “wanna”! 
    God has given us great disciplines in which our new created spiritual nature may grow in the grace and the knowledge of God. Staying in His Word, prayer, fellowship, worship, service with a heart consistently filled with praise and thankfulness--- will see the presence, power and peace of our Lord enlarged and magnified within the believer’s mind and heart. The more time we spend seeking the Holy Spirit’s leading and direction, the more the Holy Spirit will occupy the desires, the reasoning, and the choices one makes, as the will seeks to please God.
    The first announcement that Paul makes is that he is unspiritual, carnal and a slave to sin as perceived from within his sinful nature. When Paul says that he "is sold as a slave to sin" he simply means, that as a creature of the "sinful nature", he is subject to sin, a slave to sin in his sinful nature, capable of sinning, guilty of sinning, influenced by sin and cannot free himself by himself of sin and of falling short of God’s glory. It goes to the scripture that says “no man can have two masters”…It’s only when we decide to have one master, that we begin the journey to true change and the expression of fruit in our lives; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control.
    Perhaps it comes down to the words of Joshua...."Choose this day whom you will serve, as for me and my house---we shall serve the Lord."
    I guess the word for this lesson on change would be “focus”. What is the real focus of your life? If you were to keep a spiritual journal, how much time do you spend seeking and feeding and following your spiritual nature? An hour on Sunday? – Ten minutes a day? Real change means always having the right focus.