Have you ever heard that song, "Two Coats"? It's an old song but has such a good message in it. It's what happens to you when you are born again. You take off the old coat and put on the new. You shed your sinful nature and put on the nature of Christ. You are now a new creation. Old things have passed away and all things are new. Oh, you still have the same ole body and the same mind, but you do something about your body by bringing it into control to the will of God. Then you renew your mind to think like and act like your master, the Lord Jesus. It's your spirit that is born again, not your body.
You are now dead to sin. You took off that sinful coat. When you are dead to something, that means it has no more control over you and you don't want anything to do with it. You have no desire for it anymore. You have died out to it. Sin can no longer lord it over you. But do you know if we don't renew our minds to the Word of God we will still do what we always have? We won't want to but we will. We have to find out how God's kingdom works. Then we have to line up with his way of doing things. We have been trained since we were children to live like the world. So that has to be changed and the only way to do that is to renew your mind with the Word of God. You won't have a desire for the worldly ways now, but your body still wants to do and have what it's used to. You have to train it to come into subjection to your born again spirit. Your fleshly nature will give you trouble for a while until you do this. Some Christians never do this and battle their flesh the rest of their lives. And some get discouraged and back slide.
I don't know, but maby this isn't taught in the churches like it should be. That could be the problem for some folks. If we don't hear and understand what to do about a certain situation, then we stay where we are and never grow in the Lord. It takes good teaching to accomplish this. So if you've never heard this before, you have now. I pray this will help you in your walk with the Lord and get you moving towards getting your body under control to your spirit. It can be done, but it's not an easy process. It takes time and staying in the Word a lot. So don't get dishearted and quit. Just stay with the Word and keep at it and it will happen. One day you will say "No" to your flesh and it will obey you.
Written by Ruth Napier
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