One Way to Live

 DEVOTION

THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS

ONE WAY TO LIVE

Rom 8:5-8

5 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. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

NIV

This makes it clear that we have but two choices in life. The first is to live according to our sinful nature. This would be the nature that we are born with, we cannot help that because we are sons of the first man Adam. The second is to live according to the Spirit, and that has to be a choice to put that sinful nature to death and be born again into life in the Spirit. The first question is whether we really put our sinful nature to death or do we still have it somewhere hidden in our inner man? That is have we simply suppressed the sinful nature in favor of living according to the Spirit? What is interesting is this is all done in our mind, that is our bodies cannot live on their own, or be driven by their own passions, as it all starts in our minds. What do we allow to have control?  Of course, we have chosen to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. We do not want our minds focused on our sinful nature, for that would only bring us death. That would be simply the dumbest thing we could do, live so that death reins in our lives. Therefore, we have selected to set our minds on the things of the Spirit and give him full access to our thought process. Of course, we would what life over death, but is that the real or the only reason we chose to live according to the Spirit? At the beginning that could be a main factor for our decision to follow Jesus. When we did make that change in our thinking, we felt such relief from the burdens in life that brought us such a sense of hopelessness. Living with a mind that was hostile to God left us without any real purpose in life because nothing matters other than those moments of pleasure fulfilling our sinful nature. We did not even know that was leading us to death. But when we were exposed to the light, when the Spirit spoke into our hearts and minds, we became aware of freedom from death that was available through faith in Jesus Christ, and that we needed to be born again into Christ. This pleased God when we moved from being controlled by our sinful nature to being controlled by the Spirit. The other aspect of this transition is it not only brought us life, but for the first time in our lives, we experienced peace. This is that peace, which is the tranquil state of our soul, assured of our salvation and thus fearing nothing from God and content in our earthly lot, whatsoever that is. When we were living by our sinful nature, there was no such sense of peace, or rest for us, we were continually anxious and nervous about what happens at the end of this life, trying desperately to conceal our lack of hope by trying to fulfill passions and pleasures. But now, we are at peace with our lives, both the one we now live and the one we will live in a glorified state in the presence of our Lord. Christ, and all the hope he gives us now reigns within us and so we live pleasing God, which is the one way to live.