Our ways are not God’s ways. Our ways are rooted in sin. His ways are only Righteousness.
““For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8 NKJV
We are, by our fallen human natures, driven to sin and to self-indulgence without restraint. We are easily led toward self-destructive behavior in the pursuit of satisfying yearnings and agitating passions even when we know they are not good or profitable for us.
The Apostle expressed it this way.
"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. 19 For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. 20 Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me." Romans 7:18
This distinction in our understanding of sin is vitally important to begin to be free from the endless cycle of desiring one thing, but doing just the opposite, again and again. That’s not who we are now. We are no longer sinners!! Sinner is no longer our identity now that we are in Christ. In Him we are the righteousness of God. But the genetic markers of sin still dwell in our human DNA. We all inherited them from the first Adam and the line continued in all humankind after the flood through Noah. We were all conceived in sin, so there is no argument that sets any group of sinners apart from any other.
Apart from the redemptive work of CHRIST, we all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
“But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed, being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, 22 even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference; 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed, 26 to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.” Romans 3:21
But now through the blood of Jesus Christ, our Lord, we have all been justified freely by His grace. Being, therefore, justified, He has also declared us to be the righteous of God in Him.
“No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the LORD.” Isaiah 54:17
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:1
Like the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in whose likeness we were created, we also are triune in nature. We are spirit, we have a soul (mind and emotions) and we live in a body. Spirit, Soul and Body.
So, having made our confession of faith in Jesus Christ and believed that God has raised Him from the dead, we in that moment became new creations. The old spirit of sin was taken away and a new Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and a new heart were been given to us. That is our only true identity now. To hyphenate ourselves into subgroups and sects is to diminish the glory of our single and uniquely exclusive identity as the sons of God. Having come to Jesus with the stain and stench of sin on us, we have been washed and made clean through the blood of the Lamb and the washing of the water of His Word.
In heaven there will be neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, but we all will be one. And this is the manner in which God calls us to live in the body of Christ today.
So, we struggle to walk fully in the realization of that life, because our flesh wars against our spirit, and the spirit against our flesh.
What compounds the struggle with sin in our time, as much as it did in the days of Jesus’ ministry on earth, are political laws that endorse, support, protect, and legalize behavior that God has called sin, wickedness and an abomination.
But this has always been the tension between the righteousness of God and the fallen sinful world. The pride of the first Seraph, Lucifer, also called the covering Cherub, was the beginning of rebellion against God, and through him, sin came into the world.
“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.” Isaiah 14:12-17
The era of the 60s and 70s was marked by a theme of “If it feels good do it,” Though popular in that time, the idea did not originate with the hippies or the Woodstock generation. It was the state of the nations mentioned in these Old Testament scriptures.
“You shall not at all do as we are doing here today—every man doing whatever is right in his own eyes—Deuteronomy 12:8
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.Judges 17:6
And God made it clear that wantonly following our baser inclinations to do whatever feels good was foolish and destructive, but the counsel of the Lord Is wisdom.
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise." Proverbs 12:15
"Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts." Proverbs 21:2
When Jesus prayed in the Garden before He submitted Himself to be crucified, He prayed, “…nevertheless not my will but Yours be done.”
This is the posture of faith and submission to the will of God that brings us life. We die to self in order to live for Christ.
“…knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.” Romans 6:6-7
“…that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind,” Ephesians 4:22-23