When freedom of choice truly begins

jonathanbuck — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 08:00:22 +0000

It used to worry me when my kids watched horror movies. But they weren’t the least bit perturbed. “Don’t worry, Dad,” one of them told me, “I can handle it.” And obviously in his mind he thought he could. He talked as if he had complete control.

Paul, however, talked as if we have no control over our minds at all. We’re totally controlled by other forces. And if it isn’t the Spirit of Christ controlling us, it’s our sinful nature. We are but passengers, therefore, in the car of life. We are never in the driver’s seat – which most people, I imagine, would seriously object to hearing, but that’s what Paul said in Romans 8:5 - “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.”

Whoever, or whatever, is driving us, therefore, that’s what our minds will be fixed on. If it’s our sinful nature in the driver’s seat doing the driving, then our minds will go wherever our sinful nature wishes to take us. If it’s the Spirit of Christ doing the driving, we go where the Spirit takes us. Our minds are set like a GPS system on whichever of those two satellites we’re tuned in to. We go wherever they take us.

And we think we’re in control? Not a hope, Paul says.

The only thing we have any control over is which of the two we tune in to. We can either tune in to our sinful nature and “live according to it,” verse 12, in which case we “will die,” verse 13, OR we can tune in to the Spirit, in which case we can ”put to death the misdeeds of the body” and “live,” verse 13. There are no other choices. All of us are either tuned in to our sinful nature or to the Spirit. Those who have no clue the Spirit even exists simply tune in to their sinful nature. Those who do know about the Spirit, however, have a choice. And they know which choice they’re making by their attitude toward God and his law, because if we’re “led by the Spirit,” verse 14, the “Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children,” verse 16.

Our sinful nature doesn’t do that for us. It has no interest at all in us being God’s children, or wanting a relationship with God, or pleasing him (verse 8). But it no longer has the power to make that choice for us once we’ve got the Spirit. With the Spirit we can choose which of the two controls us.

Buck To Basics » Freedom of choice

When freedom of choice truly begins