Photo by Attentie Attentie on Unsplash
We all struggle with something.
We all sin or have some emotion we wish we didn’t have. We carry regrets and shame from past hurts, relationships, or other experiences we hope to eliminate. But for some reason, they hang around.
We often wonder, am I made new? Has God forgiven me for that? Why do I still struggle (Romans 7:15)? Why do I do what I do?
Throughout Scripture (Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:24; Colossians 3:5), we are told to crucify our sin, to put it to death.
But what does that look like?
Right before Galatians 5:24, Paul has two lists: a list of sins (vs. 19 – 21) and a list called the fruit of the Spirit (vs. 22 – 23).
In vs. 19 – 21, there is sexual immorality (which is all sex outside of the bounds of marriage between a man and a woman), impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.
What is interesting about this list is that Paul seems to put them all on the same level and says, “Living in these will keep you from God” (see the end of Vs. 21).
What Paul says, though, is these are not occasional sins. In vs. 16 – 17, he describes these as overwhelming, all-encompassing desires that you cannot control the longing of. They are your identity. These things about us follow words like “always” and “never.” I always worry, try to control things, and care what others think. I can never stop this or that.
Those things slowly become part of our identity, which we carry as part of ourselves.
For each person, vs. 19 – 21 is where the battle happens. And make no mistake, we all have something.
But how do you put them to death?
This is where the fruit of the Spirit comes in vs. 22 – 23 of Galatians 5 and the freedom promised to us in Romans 8.
I love that Paul calls them fruit. It gives this picture of a farmer, of gradual growth; a farmer, not the fruit, does that. The fruit doesn’t make itself grow; God does. Fruit does grow. Not always at the rate we expect or think it should, but it grows.
The question for a follower of Jesus is, do you see growth in your life in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control? Do you see how God is working on your heart in those areas?
We take the fruit of the Spirit and put our sin to death from vs. 19 – 21.
This becomes a daily thing.
Crucifixion in vs. 24 carries this idea that it will be a death. It will be painful, complex, and complicated. Freedom always involves a war.
One of the best ways to walk this road is through confession. We practice confession daily, each week, at the communion table. Why? Because “when we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
One thing I’ve learned about God’s grace is that many times, the reason we don’t experience God’s grace and freedom in Jesus is that we won’t allow ourselves to.
We too often choose to stay stuck in our sins. This is why Paul talks so much about the mind in the New Testament (Romans 8:5, 12:1 – 2; Colossians 3:12). The daily choices make up our lives, and that pertains to the choices we make to sin or not sin. Paul tells us that we have the power to conquer all that lies before us (Romans 8:11), but many of us live already defeated lives.
What if, this week, you lived as if the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you? Because He does.
