It is by grace we have been saved, but by choice we walk in the light

Recently I have been thinking about sin, and its relation to our fleshly nature. It is quite obvious that there is sin in this world. As Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree of good and evil sin entered this world. However, it is "by grace you have been saved(B) through faith. And this is(C) not your own doing;(D) it is the gift of God," (Ephesians 28) For our own doings is sin, but by God's grace we are saved.

So it is by God's grace we are saved, but as humans we have to make the conscious decision to be saved by grace. To walk in the light of Jesus Christ that he honestly gave his life up for. He DIED , so we could have grace, he died so we could walk in the light!

Now being saved by grace is a fact, but choosing to walk in that isn't always so cut and dry. You see human nature, rather fleshly nature of the delights in sin. While our spirit is SCREAMING no, our flesh is screaming yes. For example, Your flesh is lusting, and really I mean lust happens, and the flesh seems to have no problem with it. But your soul is saying and telling you that lust is wrong, and true joy is in the arms of the father. So instead of lusting why don't we “Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (Matthew 26:41 a) And we often don't because "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41 b) So our spirit and our God conscious says yes to leaving our sin, and walking on the straight and narrow, however our flesh says no. Our flesh finds comfort in our sin.

The book of Second Peter talks about how "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire." (2 peter 2:22) And that is often how it is with us as humans. Like a dog we return to our sin instead of returning to "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, and whatever is admirable" (Philippians 4:8)why because as stated earlier, only our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak.
So where is the hope in all of this you may ask? I have just basically said because we are human we sin and we are never going to get out of sin because our flesh likes it too much. NO! There is hope. You see as children of God when we decided to give the devil no power in our life that also gives our flesh no power. And really this whole “fleshly nature” thing has no power because as children of God the devil has no power in our lives.

So it is all about making a decision that seems pretty simple, however in reality sometimes it really isn’t. Who do we give the power in our life? Do we give it to Jesus, our Daddy, or do we give it to the father of lies, the devil. If you’d ask me chilling out with my vomit or rolling around in the mire just after I have washed doesn’t seem like too much fun. So instead I make the daily decision to follow Christ and walk away from my vomit and instead into the forgiving everlasting, protecting and homey arms of my Jesus.