But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will in no way bring to completion the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh and these oppose one another in order that that which you should desire, this you do not do, Galatians 5:16, 17
The sin nature is one of the more predominate enemies that we face each day of the three that seek to thwart our Christian walk. Unlike Satan, who will flee if we resist him, or the world system, which is designed to rock us to sleep like a little baby, the sin nature never goes away. Morning, noon, and night, it is always there. It seeks to keep us in slavery and demands that we fulfill it desires. So how do we overcome such a formidable foe?
We do not fight the sin nature with law, for the law gives it strength. No, in all actuality, we do not fight the sin nature at all. It is too strong for us! So how do we gain freedom from its grip? By governing our lives according to the Spirit.
You see, in Christ we are dead to the sin nature. We died with Christ and have been raised to walk in newness of life. We need to recognize this truth and act appropriately. As we govern our lives according to who we are in Christ the desires that the Spirit produces in us will make us slaves to righteousness, which is totally contrary to the desires from the flesh, which seek to make us slaves to unrighteousness. The two desires do not mix. You cannot be Spiritual and carnal at the same time. Therefore, let the Spirit deal with the sin nature! The more we walk by the Spirit the stronger His desires become in us. The strong His desires become the less we seek to fulfill the desires from the flesh. Even those temptations and desires that have so much control over us that we feel we will never truly be free begin to lose their grip on us as we walk by the Spirit, to the point that you will have a hard time believing they caused you problems in the first place.
Freedom from the sin nature comes by living out who you are in Christ, not by any law imposed upon you, but just simply by being who God has made you in Christ.
Know – Reckon – Yield
Know that you have died with Christ has have been raised to walk in newness of life
Count these facts to be true
Yield your members to righteousness
James 4:7; 1 John 5:19; Romans 6:1-14; 7:8, 9; 2 Corinthians 10:4
For our weapons of warfare are not fleshly, but the inherent ability of God towards the pulling down of strongholds; pulling down reasoning and any thing that exalts itself against the experiential knowledge of God, and taking captive every thought into obedience concerning the Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:4