December Post

Jesus said, "Ye must be born again." We are born into the earth with the human,

fallen nature of Adam (Rom 5:12). Through faith in Jesus' sacrifice on the cross,

we can be "born again" into a new nature.

The legal finality of this transaction is "accepted" by many - but experiential reality

is little known in modern Christandom.

Romans 6:6 "Knowing this, that our old self was nailed to the cross with Him..."

Romans 6:12 "Reckon, consider yourselves also dead to sin (the carnal nature),

once for all, but alive to God in Christ Jesus."

The appropriation by faith of this truth is the difference in living in the freedom and

power of the resurrection life - or relegating this truth only to a life in heaven when

one leaves this mortal body.

Paul articulated this potential reality when he said. "I am crucified with Christ,

nevertheless I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I now live in

the body I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for

me. Therefore, I do not treat God's grace as something of minor importance and

defeat it's very purpose." Gal. 2:20,21

Could it be that this truth has been buried in the appication of psychology, more

than the application of faith in this "in Him" reality? Have we become blinded and

dull through thinking that we can somehow "heal the old nature" - rather

than reckon it crucified?

Romans 8:7 declares that the carnal nature is an enemy of God - that it cannot,

so will not - submit to God. Therefore Gal.5:17 pictures the war between the

old nature & the new nature, that the old nature will always oppose and be

antagonistic to the new nature.

To reinforce the reality that the old nature must stay dead & buried, Romans 8:13

directs that we are to habitually put to death the deeds & nature of the old nature

by the life lived in the Spirit. In other words, only walking by faith in the Spirit

actually keeps the old nature where it belongs, in the grave.

Paul summed it up this way in Galations 4. Speaking of that which was of a

"natural birth", Ishmael, and that which was of a "supernatural birth", Isaac, he

made it clear that never will the children of the natural share the inheritance of the

children of the supernatural.

"Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his

will, you are the slaves of him whom you obey." Romans 6:16

"Whom the Son makes free is free indeed." John 8:36

Pastor Alyce Tallman