The struggle for obedience is one that every Christian can identify with. We, who have experienced the birth of a new spirit by the indwelling Spirit find our sin nature constantly contesting with our better conscience. I want to obey yet there is a war within myself. Each time I find myself fighting a strong desire to move in a contrary direction. This is exactly the struggle of Paul in Romans 7. The good that I want to do, I do not do. The evil that I do not want to do, this I find myself doing. I can surely identify with the cry of Paul at the end of Romans 7, “who can save me from the body of death?”
The answer is found in Romans 8:1 – there is now no more condemnation to those who are in Christ, for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is like the law of gravity. It pulls you in a direction you may or may not want to go. When confronted with a moral law, the sin nature within us naturally inclines to contravene it. The only way to overcome the law of gravity is to have another law that is more powerful than it. Like the law of physics involved in the force and momentum of a rocket ship propelling itself upwards against the law of gravity. Likewise, the only law that is powerful to overcome the law of sin and death is the law of the Spirit of life. Christ’s death on the cross broke the power of the law of sin and death over us and the indwelling Spirit helps us appropriate that freedom daily.
Enough of theology. So how does this work in practical reality. The issue is the mind. To overcome the law of sin and death, we must set our minds according to the things of the Spirit. You see, there is a sequence. How we think determines what we feel and what we feel determines how we ultimately act. If we think that the law of God is restrictive and burdensome, then we will not feel like wanting to obey it. However if we think that the law of God is beautiful and brings true freedom and blessing, then we will instinctively feel like we want to obey it.
The key therefore is the mind. Trash in, trash out. You are what you think. If we fill our minds with the ideas of the world, the sensual and sexual and covetous images from the media and the internet, then this will progressively change our minds. And the way we feel. And the way we act. It cannot be understated that media is the tool of the devil too brainwash us that the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life are indeed desirable and beneficial to us. I have learnt that when I fill my mind with the things of God, read His Word, listen to MP3 sermons, read Christian books, talk to God and live with the consciousness of His presence all the time, incline myself to the prompting and leading of the Spirit, these things change the way I think. That is why Paul says in Rom 12:2 to be transformed by the renewal of our “minds”. That is also why Jesus says that “the eye is the lamp of the body”. Our eyes are the channels to what we put into our minds. If we gaze on images of sensuality and sexuality and covetousness and lust, we will be changed into what we see. Because it will changes our minds, and then our desires and ultimately our actions.
The battle for obedience therefore lies not in the will or even our feelings, but much further upstream in the arena of the mind. Let God change your mind and you will win the battle for obedience.