FIRST NATURE

By Rick Mathes

Colossians 3:5 (NASB77) ⁵   Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry.

Adam walked in the Shekinah glory of Father God because it was his first nature to walk in the perfection of the Image and Likeness of God unhindered by sin. It was his second nature to sin that did him in. It’s been asked, “Could Jesus sin?” The answer is that Jesus in the flesh was “able to sin” but in the Spirit was “able not to sin”: and so we likewise able not to sin in His Spirit. The sin you have is the sin you want more than Jesus because if you wanted Jesus more than you wanted the sin, you wouldn’t have it. Sin killed God’s Son and that makes Him very angry when you sin and certainly in no mood to bless you until you hate sin and love His Son.

You can start with immorality or illicit sex because that is Satan’s easiest entry level to your mind and soul. We are under a bombardment of inducements to sin sexually in any direction we look we are immersed in sensual shame.

Impurity is a branch on that tree that blossoms into a lot of damage most of which becomes water under the bridge and un-repairable. This could include homosexuality, affairs, pornography, and the seed of corruption, lust.

Our mind can be a playground for lust if we allow it to be. I’m sure Jesus looked at Mary Magdalene and noticed she was attractive but His eyes turned away. It’s not the look that does the damage, it’s lingering that causes you to move to acting out.

This lingering on a sinful thought promotes an evil desire and when your mind leads to this sin, your heart and feet follow. We are by in large real wimps when it comes to shutting down lustful thoughts. All of hells demons are laughing at our weakness!

The bottom line to our second nature is putting Jesus in second place. This is called idolatry. It can include promiscuity indecency, covetousness, greed or a host of material possessions. Any preference, anything we hold above Jesus will insure our fall into the flame-throwers hands of the devil and he has a way of making us think we are having a good time on the way to hell.

We must die to the flesh and in the Spirit of Jesus demonstrate we imitate Him. Let’s return to our first nature and be wholly His and consequently holy as Adam once was.