Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!!  May this year be filled with Truth, Hope, Faith, and Love.  Remember to treat people kindly, and to always put God first in your hearts.

"Produce fruit in keeping with repentance."  Matthew 3:8

"So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.  For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.  They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.  But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.  The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like.  I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  But the Fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  Against such things there is no law.  Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with it's passions and desires.  Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.  Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."  Galatians 5:16-26  

I encourage you to read all of Galatians 5!

As Christians, our sinful nature and the Holy Spirit are in conflict with each other, so that we don't do what we want!  Like Paul said, 

"We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but I hate what I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good.  As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me.  I know what nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do- this I keep on doing.  Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God's Law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making ,e a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 
What a wretched man that I am!  Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's Law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."  Romans 7:14-25

Therefore...

"Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the Law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.  For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.  And so He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."  Romans 8:1-4

Read all of Romans 8, as well!



Happy New Year, again!