What Have You Done For Me Lately?

Living a life that is pleasing to the Lord is sometimes viewed as a mystery - something that the Lord hides in His Word that must be searched out. Some believers think that somehow this life eludes them because they are not discerning enough, or aren't "deep enough" in the Word. God didn't design the Christian walk that way. Let's take a look at what the Word says about a walk for Him.

Many sermons, lessons and devotionals have been given on Romans 12:1-2 and tagged as, "how to live in God's will", or, "how to do the will of God". Now, these are good verses and they definitely tell us that we should offer ourselves in sacrifice to God, not be conformed to the world, and be transformed by the renewing of our mind. These are all appropriate and necessary, but let's look a little deeper.

The verse says we should present our bodies as living sacrifices. How do you apply that phrase in your life? How are we to accomplish that? By what means? Paul says earlier in Romans 7, verse 18, "to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." Even Paul knew that in this flesh by which we are all trapped there is no mechanism to please God. Chapter 7 goes on as Paul paints a self-portrait for us - verse 23 and following;

"But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin."

Paul, in the mind of some the greatest Christian ever, painted himself as a "wretched man."

So, how do we live for Him?

Again, back to the book of Romans, chapter 6, verses 11-12,

"...reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof."

Paul puts it another way in Galatians 2:19-20,

"For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."

Paul knows the answer. It is impossible for us to please God through the outworking of this sinful flesh. Our only hope is one thing: reckon yourselves to be dead. That's not a word in use much today, except in the south, but it still means today exactly what it meant when the translators of the King James Bible wrote it 400 years ago. Reckon is an accounting term. It means "to settle accounts", or "to make a calculation", or "to judge, suppose, or think";, and lastly, "to accept something as certain".

God through the work of Christ not only paid for our sins, all of them, since He is not limited by time, but also FREED us from the power of this sinful flesh. But, that is only effective if we consciously "reckon" it to be true every day. Sometimes multiple times a day.

Our mind is a powerful tool - a weapon given to us to use against Satan. He cannot know our thoughts unless we verbalize them, but he does know our weaknesses, because they are his as well - the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. He can capture us and sift us like wheat if we do not consciously acknowledge that we are dead to the flesh, freed from its power, and free to allow Christ to live through us by His spirit that lives within in us, given to us at the time we accepted His free gift of eternal life.

So, how do you "walk the walk"? You don't. Let Him walk for you. He wants to, He's offered to, He only wants you to say, "Lord I can't do this, will You do it for me?" Just as if you were His child. You are, you know.

Mark Tabor