Did you know? When you first came to Christ, you were actually “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision on you – the cutting away of your sinful nature. For you were buried with Christ when you were baptised, and with Him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.

We were once dead because of our many sins, and because our sinful nature had not yet been cut away in this spiritual circumcision. Then God gloriously made us truly alive with Christ, for He forgave all our sins! He cancelled the record of the charges against us and took it away by literally nailing it to that cruel cross. Yet in this way, He in fact disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities in heavenly places. He marvellously shamed them, publicly, by His incredible victory over them through the cross.

God essentially did what the law of Moses could not do. The plan all along was that He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving His Son as the sacrifice for our sins. He did this purposefully, so that the just requirements of the law would be fully satisfied for we who now no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit.

Those poor wretches who are still dominated by the sinful nature continually think about sinful things, but those of us who are controlled by the Holy Spirit and who have been ‘born again’ think continually about things that please the Spirit.

So letting our sinful nature control our minds leads to death, both physical and spiritual. But letting the Holy Spirit control our minds leads to real, genuine and true life and a peace that transcends all understanding. You may have noticed that the sinful nature is always hostile to God; it never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.

But I pray that you who are reading this are not controlled by your sinful nature! You should in fact be controlled by the Spirit, if you indeed have the Spirit of God living in you (and remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all.)

Christ lives within us, so even though our bodies will die because of sin, the Spirit gives us life because we have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in us! Wow. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, He will give life to our mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within us; this is the hope we have in the resurrection!

Therefore, dear brothers and sisters,we have no obligation to do what our sinful nature urges us to do. For if we live by its dictates, we really will die in every sense of the word. But if through the power of the Spirit we put to death the deeds of our sinful natures, we really will live! Remember, that all who are led by the Spirit of God are the true children of God.