"You must not let sin reign in your mortal bodies or command your obedience to bodily passions. You must not let any part of your body turn into an unholy weapon fighting on the side of sin."
Paul's letter to the Romans
The letter of Paul to the Romans can at times be very wordy and hard to follow. After reading parts of his letter, I find it often creates more questions than answers.
The principal question that comes to mind in the above quote from the early chapters of Romans is: "How do I know when I am allowing sin to exercise dominion in my mortal body and command obedience to bodily passions? Is it when I get angry? Is it when I feel sad? Is it when I fight passionately for a worthy cause? Or even a cause that may not be so worthy, but one important to me."
The letter does not give us a clear answer. It only instructs: "Don't be a slave to your passions, but be slaves to righteousness. But Paul does answer this question in his letter to the Galatians.
In Galatians Paul says: "Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh, for what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit. The works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing and things like these. I ware you, Paul says, those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
This letter to the Galatians then goes on to give the fruits of the Spirit. We've heard them many times. "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. If you want to know if you are living by the flesh or by the Spirit, then look at the fruits of your endeavors.
The Gospel of Luke confirms Paul's view on this as well. In this Gospel, Jesus says to His disciples: "You can be quite sure, if the householder had known at what hour the burglar would come, he would not have let anyone break through the walls of his house. You too much stand ready." And then Jesus goes on to explain that if a servant acts inappropriately, beating other servants, men and women, drinking and getting drunk- in other words "living by the flesh and not by the Spirit", then be on your guard, because you never know when the master is returning.
If you are found living by the Spirit, you will be rewarded as such. However, if you are found living by the flesh, your disappointment will be great.
The time to be living by the Spirit is "now"! Not tomorrow, or next week, or next year. The only time we have is the time we have right at this moment. The temptation we may have, while the Master is away, is to put off for tomorrow what we know the Master expects of us today. We are called "now" to live by faithfulness to the Spirit, the way that leads to life.
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