Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. – Romans 8:12-13
There is now no longer any condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but there is a way that all who are in Christ Jesus will live. This is not about living a certain way in order to prove or earn salvation, rather it is an outworking of the salvation that we have received. Paul goes so far as to talk of it in terms of debt or obligation. Christ has done it all and it cannot be taken away, but we have a significant part to play also. This is that tension that we often see in Scripture of God’s work and our work. On the one hand, we don’t just sit around waiting for God to do everything; on the other hand, we don’t need to run around and make sure everything gets done.
We see this tension even as Paul says “by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body…”. Our sanctification is a work of both the Holy Spirit and us. Sanctification doesn’t just happen by virtue of being filled with the Spirit, though it cannot happen without it; it requires work and intentionality and decisive action on our part.
What Paul speaks of here – putting to death – is called mortification, and it is a key, though perhaps sometimes ignored, part of our growth in holiness. Whilst we grow the fruit of the Spirit, we kill the misdeeds of the body. Both must happen. We cannot be growing in love, joy and peace whilst continuing in impure sexual activity. The fruit should be nurtured, the sin should be killed.
A good gardener knows that their job is not just to encourage the growth of their plants, but also to discourage (even kill) the growth of anything else that would ultimately hinder. Perhaps in our Christian walk, we don’t quite realise how the growth of sin hinders and eventually cuts off our growth in spiritual fruit. They cannot have a peaceable coexistence. One must necessarily kill the other.
Jesus exhorts (hyperbolically): If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. It should be the case for all sin that we identify in our lives, that we assume attack mode, but we will need a particularly strong plan of attack for our besetting sin. These are the patterns of sin that we repeat, over and over, a weak spot. We all have them. We might be prone to angry outbursts, lustful behaviours, greed, lying (or over/under-exaggeration, twisting words), sloth/laziness, gossip, excessive stress, pride. You may have an addiction.
It can feel quite confronting to recognise patterns of sin, and this isn’t something to be rushed through. Our patterns of sin tend to lie along the same fault lines as our idols, and they break out in particular ways to protect those idols. You may find, for instance, that your angry outbursts tend to cluster around particular situations or people. Ask yourself why you got angry, and then why that was something to be angry about. Try to get to the root. We will want to attack both the way the anger breaks out, and the underlying cause.
Killing the outward (surface) expression of sin can happen in many ways. If you have identified particular patterns, pray, read up to find what others have done, speak to other Christians you trust. In some cases, it may also be appropriate to seek professional help. Work out a plan, a living plan that should be modified and improved as you test it out. Gather people around you who can hold you accountable. Work consistently and deliberately to search and destroy the sin.
The root, however, requires a Spirit-empowered re-alignment of our desires, a shifting of our idols. The root can only be shifted by loving God more and starving that idol of our worship. We will need to give our attention, deliberately, to look at who God is and what He has done and ask the Holy Spirit to press those truths more deeply into our hearts. If we truly realised what God had done for us in salvation, there would be no question of recognising – whole-heartedly – the debt obligation we owe and would willingly and joyfully do anything to repay.
The work of killing sin, particularly besetting sin, is long and can feel at times pointless, discouraging or just too hard. Satan wants to feel helpless and forget that the Holy Spirit is the one empowering our efforts. Satan wants us to feel condemned and lost. But these are not true. The only way that we have any sort of desire or power to attack sin is because God is at work in us because we belong to Him and we are not condemned. We will struggle, and we will fail, we will need to confess and repent; but we battle in the power of the Spirit of life, contending against the sin that leads to death. Christ put death to death so that we would be freed to battle against all the ways in which sin infects our life. Put death to death in your body. Search and destroy the sin.
Prayer focus:
- Praise God that the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us.
- Pray that we would hate the sin in our lives and work to kill it.
- Pray that the Holy Spirit would press the love and glory of God more deeply on our hearts and that our love for God would displace all other loves.
