Cain.

Jacob.

Moses.

David.

Paul.

Me.

You?

What do all these have in common? All of us (including maybe you) have needed God to save us from one unstoppable, destructive force.

Ourselves.

The Lord has saved me so often from myself – and yet the beast that is my flesh needs crucifying on a regular basis.

This is why Paul says in Rom. 6.1-6 that we have already put to death and raised to new life with Christ, and in 6.11 that we must consider ourselves “dead to sin.” Past tense. Done. Over.

Yet in Rom. 8.13 Paul doesn’t use the past tense, he uses a future condition: “if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”

So dying to the flesh is an ongoing battle, one that can only be waged in the power of the Spirit.

Which leads me to a simple prayer that you might want to try sometime:

Triumph over me again Holy Spirit, conquer me and save me from myself.

How about it  – are you on the list too?

I was just thinking about all the letters Paul wrote in the NT. He was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these letters and they have proved so very useful to the church down through the centuries. I am always amazed when I think about this, because often, Paul was dashing off a letter to deal with a bad situation (like in Corinth), or correct false teaching (like in Galatians), or deal with a tricky personal issue (like in Philemon). The Holy Spirit anointed his responses to those crises – so it is a very good thing for us that those churches had to deal with those issues! Of course, we know God often works this way – redeeming the results of our own sin or someone else’s sin for our benefit and theirs. God is so cool – the way he makes treasure out of our junk is one of his coolest traits of all.

What junk have you got that God can transform into treasure?