“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 what I hate 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 that 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 me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
What a wretched man 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.

There is a battle at work within us, as the old man attempts to have dominance in us.

We are being changed daily into the image of Christ, but there is still this other nature that struggles deep within us.

I watched a movie the other day; one that probably most of us have seen at one time or another.

I AM speaking of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson story of the man who struggled with two natures that battled within him.

We all know the story of how this doctor had somehow come upon a serum that would cause a dramatic change to come about in his personality. He was at first a very mild-mannered man who kept to himself and practiced medicine.

Somewhere along the way he wanted a change though. He wanted to become a new person.

He wanted a dramatic breakthrough, and he certainly found one! But it wasn’t the type of change or breakthrough that he had wanted.

He discovered that after he partook of this potion that the change that came over him was much more than he could handle.

He became someone or something, that was totally strange to himself. He became a monster, if you will.

He had secretly fallen in love with a woman who lived in his household that was one of the maids that worked there. In the end, she saw the horrible transformation that took place with this man after he had taken this serum.

She saw that there were actually “two men” and not one.

But the real antidote for overcoming this dilemma is to set our minds upon what is above, and not below. Our mind is a battlefield for certain, and the enemy of our souls is always waging war there, but we have a choice.

Thoughts bombard us every minute of every day and they are oftentimes fleeting ones. We are told that we can take control of these thoughts though:

“We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 10:5.

We actually don’t have to let Mr. Hyde take the upper hand in our natures. While he is still there, we can allow the true Mr. Jekyl to become all that he is supposed to be through the new nature that God wants to do “in us.”

Then we won’t need any serums or seminars, or “quick fixes.” Let Him do the work; He knows what He’s doing.

“How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers! But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers,” Psalm 1:1-3.

 

Selah,
~ Stephen Hanson

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Stephen Hanson of In His Truth Ministries came to the LORD is a special way in 1975 and has prophesied regularly since. In these end-time birthing pangs we are reminded that judgment must first begin with the household of God. Will we be prepared and ready?

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