Friday May 31, 2024

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

At the new birth God puts into our souls a new power with which to wage warfare against our sins.

Worldly people, too, struggle against their sins. But in a worldly way. They struggle against sin because of the unpleasant and dangerous consequences of sin. Sin itself they love; but they do not dare to commit it because by so doing they injure themselves.

At the new birth a change takes place in this regard. Sin itself becomes our enemy. To offend against God now becomes the worst feature of sin, because we love God.

Do not misunderstand me. Those who are born anew are not sinless. As long as we live here on earth “the flesh will lust against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh,” as the apostle says.

We will therefore experience an unwillingness to pray and read the Bible also after the new birth; we will feel slothfulness and an unwillingness to do the will of God. Yes, we will even experience the desire to sin.

However, we know now that there is only one way in which we can overcome our sins, namely, by having the love of God shed abroad in our hearts again.

Now we will confess before Him that we fell because our love became lukewarm. And we will pray to Him that He will take us to His heart again and warm us thoroughly with His love.

This is the real secret of sanctification.

It does not take place by the will of the flesh, nor by the human will, but only by God. It is only an experience of Christ that can, after we have been defeated, give us the right inner attitude toward sin again. It is only love toward God that can make sin painful to us.

O. Hallesby, God’s Word for Today: A Daily Devotional for the Whole Year, translator Clarence J. Carlsen (Augsburg, 1994)
Scripture for opening text taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, ESV © 2016 by Crossway Bibles.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.