Eliminate Your Old Nature

BIBLE MEDITATION

“I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh”

Galatians 5:16 

DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT

When God made you, He gave you certain impulses—the impulse of hunger and thirst, for example—and the need for rest, for achievement, and the need for pleasure and sex.

All these are God-given instincts. There is nothing dirty or impure about any of those.

But the flesh takes these natural instincts and distorts, perverts, twists, and misuses them. Hunger turns to gluttony; sex turns to immorality; the need for rest turns to laziness; the need for recreation turns to debauchery.

Our old nature, called “the flesh,” takes the things of God and perverts and twists them and tries to get us to fulfill a legitimate desire in an illegitimate way.

ACTION POINT

How can we keep the flesh from taking over? Look at our verse: “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.” The Christian life is not a one-time event but a daily walk, step by step each day. When you are submitting moment by moment to the Holy Spirit, the flesh will not be in the driver’s seat.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers