Men’s Discipleship

As a new disciple of Jesus, did you naively presume that all of your sinful habits were just going to go-away? Silly you; silly me.
Our Selfish Heart has absolutely no intention of giving up its original territory to the Spirit Heart. Our Flesh does what it always does: it goes on autopilot and engages in various sin addictions.
And yet, our Spirit Heart gives us a new way of thinking; a new way of processing what is the right thought, feeling and behavior. The Spirit Heart longs for you and me to pay attention to it – so that we will stop self-destructing in sin addictions, and instead, develop new Christlike habits.
Here is the kicker: we are not going to overcome our sin addiction and develop a Christlike habit unless we succeed in creating a new neurological bridge. We must walk on that new bridge (i.e., Christlike behavior) over and over and over again until it becomes our new habit. The Christlike habit then – praise God! – supplants our sin addiction.
However, our sanctification journey is very difficult; very painful. If you do not believe me, perhaps you will believe the Apostle Paul. As you no doubt remember, Paul was a Talmid to the famous Rabbani, Gamaliel. Paul was a Hebrew of Hebrews, a Pharisee, a man of great zeal, and he described his righteousness toward the Torah as “blameless.”
Yet, this “law abiding” Paul still needed a Spirit Heart – which he miraculously received. Once implanted, Paul began to process life very differently than before. He became a committed disciple of Jesus. Further, God chose this man to bring the Good News to the gentiles – and to write the majority of the books in the New Testament.

And yet …

This super-Christian, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, wrote the words amalgamated in the following paragraph. You cannot fail to notice the anguish in Paul: the struggles between his Selfish Heart and his Spirit Heart; the control that the Flesh had over his genuine intentions to be Christlike; his agony in still acting upon his sin addiction, and how his “body parts” seemed to actually rule over his good intentions. And, by the way, in the following verses, Paul is writing in the present tense – not as someone who had overcome his sin addiction.

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my body parts another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my body parts. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

Ouch! But there is a silver-lining to our war between the two Hearts: even when we fail and give in to our sin addiction, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We are committed disciples of Jesus; we are His, and He will not let us go.
I can hear the wheels turning in someone’s head: “Well, heck, if we are not condemned if we go ahead and sin, perhaps I can stop trying so hard to obey Jesus’ commands.” Wrong! That would not be in keeping with being a disciple of Jesus, nor would that demonstrate giving up your life for Jesus.
So, is there any – please, any – way that I am likely to be more successful in overcoming my sin addictions?

Glad you asked