Our Nature

Ok, so the Bible speaks of us human beings having the sin nature. This never sat well with me. So the other day I recalled a scenario of a toddler having sugar smeared on his mouth and upon being asked, ‘did you steal the sugar’, bluntly denies it. Now that made me just agree, it’s our nature. There can’t possibly be some conniving lesson that the kideo learnt that led him to know how to strategically or even stupidly so, lie and become deceitful and cunning. No lessons there, just pure nature. I love going around in circles with many concepts I learn about. I recently posted about Sin. I’ve been reading through it over and over again. I was then nicely surprised by God when during devotion I read Romans 7. I then not only understood but started thanking God for the rich revelation of who we are, who he is and the role of Jesus Christ in our lives. To many this may have been a revelation they have even classified as a fossil in their Christian walk, but trust me repetition of anything always breeds perfection, clarity and depth.

I really love this scripture, in one go it delivered me from many religious beliefs. I stood in awe when in some pauses I saw just how we are such a deceived generation, well very similar to previous generations but our era has its own amazingly shocking lies, many of which indoctrinate us into believing all sorts of lies. Please forgive me for the long sentences. God is exposing sin in us, he is teaching us that irrespective of our current beliefs, him being GOD involves us transforming *this word does TRANSFORM neh* each day into the truth of who he is. Ok. We have become so sin conscious and so work-for-purity orientated that we dissolve the actual mandate of Jesus. We are reversing the truths and depth of grace and love. We are disobeying the “house rules” as Creflo calls them, of the dispensation of GRACE. Sweet Lord forgive us.

We need to yearn to understand God at a whole new level, above what we read, hear and perceive. Let us look into this passage in Romans. I trust that God will enlighten your mindset to the transparency of your nature, the war inside, the grace of his sons sacrifice and how when enticed by all sorts of sticky foods, the choice remains with your thirst and love for him to wind up doing what is honorable, pure and right. We must yearn to not only BE right, but to equally DO right.  It I not easy, it’s not meant to be, should it be, we will never grow, there will be no character building in our lives. Do enjoy.

 ROMANS 7:7-25
⁷ But I can hear you say, “If the law code was as bad as all that, it’s no better than sin itself.” That’s certainly not true. The law code had a perfectly legitimate function. Without its clear guidelines for right and wrong, moral behavior would be mostly guesswork. Apart from the succinct, surgical command, “You shall not covet,” I could have dressed covetousness up to look like a virtue and ruined my life with it.
^8-12 Don’t you remember how it was? I do, perfectly well. The law code started out as an excellent piece of work. What happened, though, was that sin found a way to pervert the command into a temptation, making a piece of “forbidden fruit” out of it. The law code, instead of being used to guide me, was used to seduce me. Without all the paraphernalia of the law code, sin looked pretty dull and lifeless, and I went along without paying much attention to it. But once sin got its hands on the law code and decked itself out in all that finery, I was fooled, and fell for it. The very command that was supposed to guide me into life was cleverly used to trip me up, throwing me headlong. So sin was plenty alive, and I was stone dead. But the law code itself is God’s good and common sense, each command sane and holy counsel.
¹³ I can already hear your next question: “Does that mean I can’t even trust what is good [that is, the law]? Is good just as dangerous as evil?” No again! Sin simply did what sin is so famous for doing: using the good as a cover to tempt me to do what would finally destroy me. By hiding within God’s good commandment, sin did far more mischief than it could ever have accomplished on its own.
^14-16 I can anticipate the response that is coming: “I know that all God’s commands are spiritual, but I’m not. Isn’t this also your experience?” Yes. I’m full of myself—after all, I’ve spent a long time in sin’s prison. What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary.
^17-20 But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
^21-23 It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.
²⁴ I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
²⁵ The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.