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Should Christians Struggle Through Lives?
When we experience the new eternal life after being saved, should we still struggle to do good deeds so that we can have the fruits of the Holy Spirit? Many Christians have the perception that we still need to struggle and deny ourselves and bear the cross to follow Christ. Part of that, indeed, is the commandment of Jesus. However, how do we go about to bear this cross (or what cross) and deny ourselves? The following are some questions that lots of Christians have asked, but still could not find answer(s) to.
Did Jesus really ask His disciples/followers to take up the cross and follow Him, and fulfill all the requirements (i.e. deny ourselves and have the fruits of the Spirit) before we can enter into the Kingdom of God? But it is very difficult to accomplish all these requirements set by the Lord Jesus. How can we live our daily life and satisfy these requirements at the same time?
Who has the ability to accomplish these requirements: deny oneself and bear the cross to follow Jesus?
Are believers joined to the Lord, whom has fulfilled those requirements?
What does it mean by "our old selves are dead"? Does it mean that our fleshes do not exist anymore?
More related questions being asked:
Most of us agreed that our flesh could not fulfill any requirements of God. We also acknowledge that it is dead when we joined to the Lord (when we were saved). But in Romans 8:13, it seems to say that the flesh is still the source of our sins, and we need to mortify it through the Holy Spirit. So, does that mean our “old selves” are dead but because we are still in the flesh, we still need to deny it everyday when we do not walk according to the Spirit? May be all these simply mean that our sanctified lives are not yet completed, but being sanctified is an on-going process. Is it the reason why Paul told the believers to pursue righteousness and peace, and not to do other things not according to the Spirit? When we pursue all these things according to the teaching from God, are we living according to the principle of law or the principle of the Spirit?
The following passages may help us to go back to the fundamental — faith.
I.Jesus did mean to ask whosoever wanted to enter the kingdom of God to fulfil every requirement. Therefore, He emphasized that nobody could enter the heavenly kingdom unless he did this and that. Of course He knew nobody could! To take an example. The young ruler came up to Jesus asking for the way of getting eternal life. What Jesus told him was not the salvation which we are now so familiar with, but He told him to do this and that although He loved him (Mk 10:21). Why did Jesus not tell him the ultimate solution straight away? He made him sad and go away! The only conclusion I can draw is that the time period, which the Books of the Gospel recorded, was a transitional period. It was a period between the OT and the NT that the salvation was still not revealed clearly. What Jesus did was to state the requirement of entering the heavenly kingdom (actually to elaborate the Law more clearly), including the virtues and characteristics of the subjects of the kingdom.
He is the only one who can fulfil every requirement of God. This is not only revealed by his crucifixion, but also by His unblemished life. Therefore, He said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil."(Mt 5:17) Note that it is He who has come to fulfil the Law. On the other hand, His crucifixion further proved that what man needs are not only doctrines or some Do’s and Don’ts but replacement and redemption.
You are right. It is a fundamental truth.
Galatians 2:20-21 says, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me." Since it is no longer I who live, why do we still have to deny ourselves? If we are still struggling with the problem of "self", it shows that we do not believe that we have been crucified with Christ. It is very logical. What we have to do now is "to live by faith in the Son of God".
About the problem of Romans 8:13, let me put it this way. From 8:1 to 8:17, there is a comparison between a man who belongs to the flesh and another man who belongs to the Spirit. We are the people who belongs to the Spirit (8:9) and this point is crystal clear. The one who belongs to the Spirit minds the things of the Spirit. The result is that the righteous requirements of the Law might be fulfilled in us and we have life and peace. On the other hand, we are not the ones who belong to the flesh who mind things of the flesh. See 8:7: the one who belongs to the flesh is hostile to God and does not submit to God's Law, indeed he CANNOT! His result is death, which surely is not our fate, right?
Old man belonged to the flesh (Rm 7:14) and was sold to Sin. There is no reason that the old man died but flesh is still alive! Galatians 5:24 is tailor made for this question. The old man was the slave of Sin and this slave is now dead. Sin has no power on the new man. Remember it is all the outcome of faith unto God's Words. If anyone, even Christians, does not believe in the Words of God, His promises do not take effect on him. He still has to struggle and will not get a solution eventually. Paul did talk about good deeds. However, every time which he told believers to perform or pursue good deeds was AFTER he explained the perfect salvation of Jesus Christ. It is of no use for him to tell the ones who still belong to the flesh to pursue good deeds! But once a person is converted and belongs to the Spirit, he has a holy life. If his spiritual life is in a normal condition, a little guidance is essential to facilitate him to walk in the right way. However, if his spiritual life is abnormal, this kind of teachings are just burdens for him and are likely to bring him under the principle of work which is away from the principle of faith.
When the young ruler came up to Jesus asking, "what good thing must I do to get eternal life?", Jesus answered, "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments." (Mt19:17) He indeed led him to a dead end!! He knew nobody can obey the commandments for "no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the Law" (Rm3:20). Yes, He did lead him to a dead end! Unless anyone knew he was hopeless, he would not call upon the grace of God for mercy. In fact, Jesus revealed that had it not been the intervention of God, who is omnipotent, man would have been left no way out. Eternal life would have been too far for him because "with man this is impossible" (Mt19:26). Thank God, Paul said, "BUT NOW a righteousness from God, apart from Law, has been made known" (Rm3:21). God's intervention was through His Son Jesus Christ.
About the phrase "to put to death the misdeeds of the body" (Rm8:13), we should pay attention that we should do this "BY THE SPIRIT". The work of the Spirit is to reveal the Son. If we, through the Spirit, put our focus totally on Christ the Son, we can naturally get rid of such misdeeds or any bondage which we think we cannot overcome. However, too many times, or always, we set our sight on ourselves in order to "deal with" our sins, our flesh, our misdeeds, and whatsoever else. This is indeed not "BY THE SPIRIT to put to death the misdeeds of the body". I'm afraid we are trying to accomplish the job BY OURSELVES. Apart from this spiritual truth, what left behind is sorrow and a crying, "what a wretched man I am!" (Rm 7:24)
II.Faith does not stop after we were being saved. Salvation does not stop there either. From most Christians' point of view, we ignore the fact that we have to live by faith and believe in the Word of God. It is easy when we say that non-believers choose and pick to believe in the Word of God (when they feel like). But to Christians, we ALWAYS do the same when we do not live by faith and enjoy the freedom brought about by the cross of Christ. We perceive that some of God's word are too difficult to be followed by us because we are still living in this flesh.
That means that we nullify the effect of the cross, nullify Jesus himself (He is the author and finisher of our faith).
Apparently, it is a matter of the eyes of our flesh vs. the eyes of the spirit. We can 'see' our flesh and the world around us. We can see that we cannot do good deeds. So we try to do something -- laws of work. We never even stopped and 'look' at the situation using the eyes of the spirit. That is faith. That is taking the Word of God LITERALLY. That is trusting and believing in His Word and His accomplishment on the cross. That is living with Jesus.
Too often we say that 'oh, we have departed from the Lord and sinned against Him. But He will forgive.' Yes that is true and that is the promise that He has given. But that is not NORMAL. The life that we received from the Lord is spotless, and sins have no dominion over this new life. It is very logical. When "it is no long I who live, but Christ lives in me," He is taking up the cross for us. When He is living in us, OF COURSE we are following Him, where else are we going? So when Jesus said that we have to take up the cross to follow Him, the only way is to let Him lives in us. And the only way that He can live in us is through faith.
Mortifying the 'old self' or 'flesh' belongs to the laws of work. We think we can do something. Yeah right! Who do we think we are? Being Christians does not mean that we have the 'divine' power to mortify our old selves. There is no more looking back because there is nothing behind. No more old selves, flesh, sins for us to deny. We have denied ourselves when we first repented and accepted the salvation of Christ. When we look back, the only thing we see is Christ. When we look ahead, the only thing we see is Christ. When we look at ourselves, the only thing we see is Christ. That is through the eyes of the spirit, through faith, through the Word of God, through the cross, through the Lord our Savior. That is the reality of living as a Christians -- Christ's men or Christ's followers. He MUST LIVE IN US.
We should ask this question: If Christ is living in me, why does He have to struggle to be perfect? Does that mean His own salvation is not good enough even for Himself?
May the Lord have mercy on us, and may the Lord opens our spiritual eyes to see Him and Him alone. No more 'half and half', but complete in Christ. Only faith (or Jesus) can bring us 'whole' before God, without spot and blemish. Do we choose and pick His word to believe in? There is no gray area, either black or white. Either we need to struggle as Christians (to do good) or we don't have to.
III.Concerning Romans 8:13, we need to read from Romans chapter 12 through 16 (at least), then, it would become a very clear picture. If we only read the first half of verse 13, then, we will miss a lot of blessings through what Christ has done for us. One main point that we have to pay attention to is that we are the "children of God"; led by the Spirit of God. Through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body; we have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Note that we became the children of God when the Spirit came into us. This means that the Spirit came inside our hearts at the time we believed, and our fleshes were mortified at the same time. The entire Chapter 8 in the book Romans is about the Gospel, telling us the differences between believers and non-believers. To us, those believe in Jesus Christ and His complete salvation, all these are accomplished by Christ. Just like Romans 8:2 says," law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." It is finished. He has accomplished all and we are free.
Thank God for His perfect Salvation, which the Lord has done perfectly. This is what Paul has written clearly in the first half of the book of Romans.
In the days of our Lord on the earth, He has fulfilled the law, and pointed out that there is NO WAY to please the Father except through Him. No matter how much the young-ruler has done according to the Law (Matthew 19:16-22), he still departed with sadness. This tells us that there is no way out under the Law. At the same time, there are a lot of people were blessed through 'faith' in that time (and in the time before that and after that -- Hebrews 11). Therefore, if we do not walk in faith through Jesus Christ, our lives will continue to be sad because we do not have the ability to mortify our flesh.
Therefore, faith is still the main issue here. It is because throughout the history of mankind, people are blessed only because of 'faith' in our Lord.
It is disappointing that although we have the whole WORD OF GOD today, and the Salvation is done, how come it is still difficult for us to understand that the only way to be blessed is through faith, and not work. We cannot depend on our experience, because that will lead us to depart from the Word of God.
The Lord has borne ALL and left nothing for us to bear. He has borne the cross...