One Person, Two Natures… (Why You Do What You Do!)

What I’m going to share with you tonight is for the believer. For those lovely souls that have been born again, born from above. Those with holy spirit residing within. You guys. Once you got born again from above, you not only received God’s spirit within you, but you also received a new nature. Prior to that great day, all you had access to was your old nature. Your old nature is as old as you are. It is the nature all people begin with born of corrupted seed in a corrupted bloodline due to Adam’s error. But, after you get born again, you now have two natures. Not one nature functioning in two successive states (Thanks EWB), but two natures operating in one person at the same time. Sort of an ever present choice. I can think and therefore act this way or I can think and therefore act that way, at any given moment in any given time. One nature will continue to give me what it always gave me, all the defeat, all the frustration, all the loss. The other nature will lead me to all I ever wanted out of this life. Crazy huh? Two natures always vying for supremacy. One or the other nature has brought us every good thing and every bad thing that ever happened to us. One nature is contaminated and cannot be cleaned up, while the other nature is incorruptible, undefiled and pure; and has no need to be cleaned up. Understanding how these two natures work will explain why you do what you do.

You may be aware that you have this type of natural man, natural woman vibe going on from time to time, but I’m guessing you are not fully aware of the implications of having this old man blood. When Adam did the one thing God told him not to do (and it certainly had nothing to do with apples), at that moment in time sin entered into the world and sadly, death by sin. The enemy of all that is good, seized an opportunity to afflict people and he has been afflicting them ever since. From that fateful day forward, everybody born comes complete with their very own old man nature built right into their blood lines. But, it is a corrupted bloodline. It has the seeds of error in it. All these years you have been beating yourself up over your sinful nature, the one you inherited at birth. Similarly, no matter how hard you work at it, you are not going to be able to clean it up. All your hard work and discipline and crying and falling short, all fail to impact your old nature at all. It is already sick. It has been corrupted. Defiled, if you wish. Why am I telling you this? I mean it sounds pretty grim. The reason is because you are not and never were the initiator of sin. You were born with a sin nature. You were destined, absent some grand intervention, to fail. You were never going to arrive there on your own. So today, when you go astray as you necessarily must, maybe don’t take all the credit for the error. The only plausible remedy to your old nature was not an extensive clean-up project. It also wasn’t a complete renovation. Instead it was a substitution. Perfect blood for your imperfect blood. An atonement. A complete, nothing left undone, it is finished, all has been accomplished for you payment in full. And best of all, when you accepted that sacrifice for you, you received holy spirit inside and a new nature. An alternate choice. A different option. And not a command to try and clean up the old man or justify him or account for him, have remorse for him or lament him. No, my friends, only to put him off by putting on the new man, the new nature.

When you receive God’s spirit inside you, nothing can ever take that from you. No amount of sinning, committing flagrant fouls, or general poor behavior, can impact it because it was not given to you based on what you do (or did) but rather based on what God did for you in Christ. In accomplishing this, God forever freed you from the power of your old nature over you. He said, not me, that when Jesus was crucified your old nature was crucified with him. Graveyard dead and dead men cannot sin. It (sin nature) no longer has any power or authority over you. You don’t owe anything anymore. Your debt has been paid, a debt you and I could never pay. This means that you no longer have to salaam and bow to that old nature. You don’t have to spend half your life defending your choices. Nor do you have to dredge up all those skeletons you used to believe you were solely responsible for because you did not know better. Instead, you can choose to put off that old man with his endless fear of judgment and choose instead to put on your new man, the one that is inherently good. The nature that is always right, always helps, always leads to success. And the kicker? It is always there for you to put on no matter what the dead guy says to the contrary. You didn’t receive it because you earned it and you do not maintain it by earning it either. It is a redemption playing out in your real life. It is an opportunity to think a different way; to do life in a different way. It is a perpetual positive expectation. When negative expectation shows back up, it just means the old man is back at the helm. In fact, the easy way to spot when the old nature is back pulling your strings is when life suddenly or subtly becomes all about you; what you do, what you don’t do, what you should do. The old nature seeks glory in itself. Sin is always based on fear and brings fear. Feeling fearful? Guess which nature you are indulging? The new nature brings only peace. What else could it bring? It only has love in it. Believers, put on your new nature.

Two natures seeking to function at the same time is the essence of the spiritual competition we are all in, taking place in the arena of our minds. But, now that you are born again you always have access to a much better option. And, for goodness sakes, don’t spend another moment of your life trying to clean up what God has already cleansed for you in the life of His son. You don’t have to get better, try harder or whatever else it is you say to yourself each day while staring at the wrong guy. No my friends, my brothers and sisters, God’s perfection lives inside of you. God’s absolute purity resides within. You don’t have to do anything but put it on and live it.

Just some good thoughts…