Conflict Of Natures

Sometimes I feel like I’m two different people: who I am in the Lord, and who I am without the Lord at work in me. 

There’s a weird duality to a person who is being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Once we are born again, we are still ourselves, but we are also something else. And it is that “something else” which begins to go to work upon our “self.” We are simultaneously put to death and given new life. And as we walk out these incomprehensible truths of our new nature, we live in this strange limbo-land of fullness and lack, of losing to gain, of strength in weakness, of now but not yet— a paradoxical people who belong to a paradoxical kingdom. 

I may often share wonderful things poured into me by the Lord, but behind all that still lurks work to be done in me by His Spirit. There are times when I truly reflect the nature of my Master, but there are also times when I do not. I once heard a Native American proverb that spoke of two wolves inside of us all—one good, one bad. And a child asks his grandfather which one will win? And the grandfather replies: “Whichever one you feed.”

Jesus tells us that He is the Bread of Life, and those who consume Him will have eternal life. As we consume His words and actively seek His presence through prayer and private worship, He gradually gains victory over every inch of who we are, until the day comes when there will no longer be two natures at war within us, but one nature that has conquered us, subdued us, and brought us into the glory set apart for us since “before the creation of the world.” 

Oh Lord, may that nature be the one we feed. 

(Gal 5:16,17) So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.

(John 6:35-51) Jesus answered, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst…At this, the Jews began to grumble about Jesus because He had said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”…Jesus answered…”It is written in the Prophets: ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from Him comes to Me…I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And this bread, which I will give for the life of the world, is My flesh.”

(Eph 1:3-5) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms. For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption as His sons through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of His will…