Living a New Life

In Galatians 5: 16, 24 the apostle Paul advises all mankind to live in the Holy Spirit. Living in the Holy Spirit keeps you from doing what your sinful nature craves. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful natures to His cross and crucified them there.

When a man or woman gets married, he or she embarks on a new life. Later when they retire, they start another new life. Should one of them lose their spouse, he or she begins all over again. Life is all about changes, challenges and choices.

The more drastic changes in life, such as marriage, retirement, bereavement or relocation (The Stuart Family) call for far-reaching adjustments. But none is as far-reaching as the change that takes place when an individual commits his life to Christ.

Paul describes this as “new life in the Holy Spirit” and calls the believer to live accordingly (Gal. 5:16). The fundamental difference in such a new life is described as no longer “doing what your sinful nature craves,” but living now by the Holy Spirit (5: 16). This involves following “the Holy Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives” (5:25). Two options are clearly presented – following a “sinful nature {that} loves to do evil” (5:17), or living in such a way that “the Holy Spirit controls our lives” (5:22).

New believers are often surprised to discover, after the initial joy of committing their lives to Christ has worn down a little, how we all struggle to live a new life. The expectation is that everything would be fresh, new and wonderful and that we would somehow be transported into a new kind of stratospheric spirituality—free from pain, struggle, worry or defeat. This is when we must learn to trust God and develop faith in His magnificent Word. We need to learn that even though we are now in Christ, the two "forces”—the sinful nature and the Holy Spirit—“ are constantly at war fighting each other, and your choices are never free from this conflict”(5:17).

Sometimes this may seem discouraging. Believers need to remember that we are not impotent in the midst of this struggle. We will always have the freedom and the power to choose whether we will be dominated by the sinful nature or be led by the Spirit of God. We are required to make this choice—or more accurately, continue to make choices... and make the right choice.

To choose to “follow the Holy Spirit’s leading” includes recognizing that we are saying YES to Christ; as believers we are saying no to the sins for which Christ died. Jesus has “nailed the passions and desires of [the] sinful nature” to the cross, and he continues to say no to them (5:24). At the same time, he says YES to the gracious working of the indwelling Holy Spirit. As he does this, he finds he’s living a new life—a rich full life, a life that honors GOD and blesses all people. We must all continue to live a new life for Christ.